Freelancer Prophet for Hire
by GenShadow
Summary: a Freelancer software engineer got killed in a religious "incident" and in the process of obtaining compensation actually ends up with a job from Being X. Convert non-believers into faithful servant with a big bonus to convert the biggest heretic of them all, a certain salaryman. Armed with his logic and faith he sets out on his task. T for language and topics mentioned
1. Chapter 1: Prophet for Hire

_Canada, metropolis of Montreal, unknown Technology Giant boardroom, August 2021_

"Gentlemen's we are going to end on a less technical note, I realize I have lost half of you over the last three hours explaining the finer details but that is because you are bureaucrats. I can assure you that the technical crew you have brought along that you pay good money to have in your company have understood me quite clearly. To make it simple, we will begin implementing an artificial intelligence approach to optimizing your networks and increase flow of information. I can assure you that although it seems intimidating at first considering the enormous stress test will be putting through your hardware, ant colony optimization is the easiest to understand and quite probably the most powerful tool currently in the world to maximize results. We can expect development to your specifics within the first trimester of the year and results by the end of the second effectively turning your costs into a clear profit margin the third and last margin of the fiscal year."

As I finished my presentation to the biggest board of directors in the company, I cannot help but feel proud and smile at the work I had accomplished. A technology giant had hired a young freelance software engineer to inspect, optimize and possibly redesign their entire internal network among their many operating sites and customers. I seem to have done well after a whole month of research into their systems, I presented a project to effectively find out the specifics and improve performance that must have been beyond their expectations as even their own in-house engineers gave me a standing ovation.

"Absolutely brilliant!" A director applauded away as he came up for a solid handshake.

"You honor me; I have simply proposed the latest techniques." I answered with a slight bow.

"Maybe but the way you presented made even an old man such as myself understand the newest wonders. Truly even our old coot of our R&D department is shocked. It is easy to tell by how he hasn't spoken a single complaint." I could only chuckle at the praise.

It was a very successful work that guarantees a wage for myself for a solid year, freelancers don't get much rest as we need to hunt contracts to put bread on the table. My industry is special, software engineers are in very short supply yet they do one of the most important jobs for any company trying to make it big with their own systems. Unfortunately no one can pay our salary on a yearly basis considering our work usually sustains an industry for a solid decade if not more per contract. You would need to be super lucky to work for the super Giants namely Apple or Google to name just a few.

The other difficulty is reputation, there was once an incident where an error in design in medical equipment caused the death of many civilians before the fault was found. Needless to say the poor engineer paid dearly and failed to get any more contracts after the lawsuits came in one after another. I consider myself lucky for a twenty-five year old freshly graduated student from university to find contracts so quickly. Letters of recommendations from university researchers are valued a lot today and it secured my first contract with a giant more than once. This will be the fifth since my graduation and it pays a lot better than working off minimum salary as a regular programmer. I have probably made roughly three times as much as them in a quarter of the time. I made my way outside the building after a whole hour of praise, questions and wishes of people looking forward to working with me. I picked up my cellphone once I got outside since it has rung for a while.

"How did it go?" a man asked.

"Fan-fucking-tastic I would say, they loved it so much they actually want to keep working with me."

"Those poor souls." The man laughed. He was my friend from university but he went a different route as he preferred to get a stable income than scour the world for contracts. Last I heard he worked as an in-house designer and architecture director for a small software firm in the middle of nowhere.

"You mean rich souls; you should see the numbers on the contract!"

"Numbers are well and all but you have no insurance or pension plan mate, how will you settle down or retire even?"

"Must I tell you every time that I know how the world of finances works as well, I am already maxing out my RRSP contributions with a TFSA on the side for safety? There is no worry anywhere unless of course if someone somewhere invents Sky and we all die to machines" I heard a car honk in the far distance, probably more idiots fighting to get through the last seconds of the yellow lights. I was walking downtown Montreal to begin with so it is full of incompetent drivers.

"Yeah yeah your dad is some great finance guy that is leading the Canadian banking system to a new era I heard that one before. That doesn't mean your personal finances are secure either way, since a good portion of your paycheck goes into paying private insurances."

"I can't argue that one, god bless the Canadian health system but man does it lack a lot of coverage for modern medicines and needs." I started walking down stairs to reach the metro system, for anyone familiar it may sound like a stupid idea considering how it doesn't reach very far but it gets me out of stupid downtown traffic and just outside enough to catch a bus to my apartment.

"Well congratulations on your contract, I look forward to how you will break these guys too." He laughed, but there is a story to it. Apparently the first company I ever contracted too were so shocked at my results they almost cleared out their entire department of programmers for incompetence. I kind of feel bad but honestly the stuff I had to do there was pretty basic so they were not wrong in the first place.

"I do as well, see you later mate I got to catch my metro ride." I hung up and preceded down to swipe my pass. Good thing these things work by simply swiping them once since it was rush hour and there were many people here wishing to get through. I found myself a spot standing up to wait for the next one to arrive. Lucky for me it is surprisingly always on time at this station, I found that out in the short month I have been in this town, or metropolis, I don't know how to call human settlements anymore. The standard warning to stay clear rang out as it arrived, with a whistle of its brakes it came to a stop. That is when I noticed something weird, there was a man with a trench coat that was sweating a lot standing inside the metro train. This is pretty odd considering it is summer time, I understand overcoats for appearance but please take it off else I will feel hot as well.

My biggest mistake was probably to believe no one was stupid enough to do it in my peaceful country. As soon as the doors opened the man ran out and screamed at the top of his lungs.

" **IN THE NAME OF THE LORD I SHALL PUNISH ALL YOU HEATHENS, PRAISE BE TO HIS HOLY NAME!** "

The scariest part was how I was barely two persons worth away from him as he unveiled what was hidden under his coat. A full vest of IED's to which he had a wired controller in his hands, it did not take long to process what would happen but like everyone else I panicked and I started to flee. I don't think I even had the chance to take three steps that I felt the explosion hit me square in the back and sent me flying.

* * *

 _Unknown_ location _, Unknown time_

I felt like I was trampled on by countless people, no I stand corrected, trampled by countless 'murican people because every part of my body felt broken as I tried to get back up. With a groan I managed to barely make it standing but I did not find myself in the metro station, instead it was a fully white room with an old bearded man standing in front of me.

"I don't suppose you will tell me some big secret about three artefacts?" I asked with a smile.

"I do not think that information would benefit you in any way possible." He answered with an exhausted voice, if anything I took the chance to observe him further. He was wearing clothing much like you would find on a Greek god or those old monks in the temples, he had a decent beard going too, not bad.

"Well then, would you happen to know what is going on then?" I asked as I stretched back, I felt a bit better.

"You are dead." He said as matter of fact.

"Thank you for your condolences. I had pretty much figured that out if I assumed the metro was not a dream, sure did not feel like one." I cracked my neck and it made a satisfying sound, I was back in tip top shape.

"Sarcasm is not exactly what I was expecting from someone in your situation."

"Well let me make it simple, based on your looks you would appear to be a God, odds are from the bible, testament or whatever other Christian based book there is. I just so happened to have been killed by one of your believers. I do believe I have earned some sarcasm at your expense." I shot back.

"Umm indeed it does seem bad that way now doesn't it. Although that is of little concern, what does interest me is if you have deduced who I am, why are you not showing me the respect I deserve?" he rubbed his beard a bit.

"For a supposedly omniscient being you are quite the curious one." He was frowning, guess that picked a sensitive spot, better tone it down I guess. "Look here I do accept the existence of a superior being to humans on the level of a God yes, but I refuse to accept a God such as the one in the bible since he seemed like he was much more active back in the days but the moment we got a bit of science he ran away like a bitch. If you are said God in the bible I could have accepted your identity and shown you respect had you actually proven your identity or proved your existence before now."

"So you are saying if I had interacted with humans more, you would have accepted and praised me as the Creator." There was a weird twinkle in his eyes and it made me uncomfortable.

"I mean sure if you did your job as the Creator and supervisor of humans, you know a bit of interacting with us here and there. Communicating with the Pope would have been a minimum at the very least. Considering you did not though I cannot say I respect you as the god of the bible."

"You are an interesting one, logical yet faithful, you accept the post-industrial era mentality without losing the traditions and beliefs of old." He was really rubbing his beard now and that twinkle made it look very creepy.

"Right well could I maybe bother you to inform me of the next step here, as far as I know you owe me one since you know, one of your true believer robbed me of my life, and I swear to God… no pun intended." I had to correct me there as his eyes twitched the wrong way when I said it. "If this was a part of your great plan I will sue you for crime against humanity."

"There is no such plan, every individual live their lives as they see fit to reach Nirvana, your end was an unfortunate event of the corruption humanity has suffered over centuries."

"Wait hold on, are you passing the blame of my death to humans and not the one who had a believer explode?" I was getting angry.

"Why yes of course, you cannot expect me to manage seven billion humans and tell them all not to become suicide bombers. It is already beyond my abilities to reincarnate them all properly."

"Sounds like a shitty design to me and by the law as supervisor you are responsible for this incident." I pointed at him and boy did his eyes ever say he hated it.

"Truly your century is filled with nothing but fools who criticize a design I made back when you were nothing but a few dozens. Maybe you have a better work plan I should instill, you have work experience in that I can see in your memories." Wait, was he giving me work?

"Listen pal if you want me to design something I need time to analyze, design and present. At the very least I can say that your main problem is how you try to manage it all by yourself. Delegating some work to middlemen would ease your burden and improve workflow exponentially here." I hate designing on the spot, I usually need a month of time to make it properly and make sure it was actually optimal.

"Oh ho, so you mean I need prophets to guide believers to reincarnation."

"Well yeah if your whole goal is to reincarnate people you would need someone to help you do it or at least help you classify who reincarnates. I once saw a show where people had to be judged to reincarnate or be condemned to oblivion."

"Yes, I can see it in your memory, quite a brilliant idea you humans had there. That is not difficult to start but I still have an issue with people not having faith in I the creator and thus cause issues when it comes to reincarnation. Much like yourself." It seems he wants to put his entire workload on my shoulders.

"Listen God, if you wish for me to redesign your whole system I demand compensation of equal value." I will be damned if I worked longer for free.

"Now now no need to ask to be damned if you are working so hard it goes without saying that I would reward you. Ask of the Creator what you wish and I will throw in a bonus for dying in my glorious name." He opened his arm with a huge smile, if he is asking for a hug, I am not giving him one.

"Alright I demand a reincarnation to a fair era focused on technology where I won't find stupid politicians fighting for resources or religious fanatics. Just a time based on cooperation for progress of the human race, I do not care if your face is there or not I just want reasonable human beings around." It is indeed all I want, a calm world where I can make a living and not hate every single human for being idiots.

"That sounds more than possible; consider me surprised you did not ask to become a god yourself. Most humans would have expressed greed here."

"Wait? That was an option?" I done goofed, big time. He busted in laughter and it was very catchy in a way, kind of like the whole space was shaking along with his voice.

"Well then let me give you an exclusive offer for a chance to remake your demands. If you shall be my first prophet in this new generation then I shall consider giving you ascension from humanity."

"Wait you mean I have to become a holy man now? That's not exactly what I am certified for." I mean I did say he had to have middlemen somewhere for this to work optimally but a prophet is not exactly what I envisioned.

"Your duties will be simple, increase the number of faithful, spread the name of the Lord and I shall reward you based on the numbers you bring in. I can also have a goal for you; if you can convert the biggest non-believer I shall give you two wishes on top of the first one." He had a weird smile going on and it made me feel like he was trying to bait me into something but three wishes from an almighty god instead of a lamp genie was a pretty good deal.

"Alright so just spread your name, make believers and convert the most heretic of them all. I can try your challenge as long as you got a name I suppose." I know there is a catch but I have no idea what, can't be too hard right?

"I shall send you in an alternate world where you will have to increase the amount of followers; there will be magic and war."

"Question."

"What is it?"

"Isn't war a built-in factory for believers?"

"Yes it is but most curse the lord as much as they praise him, you simply have to make sure it is the second option and not the first."

"Alright what about my starting position and heretic objective?"

"I will send you to a Kingdom that could greatly use an engineer although they do not use magic thus you should have an easier time developing them in the name of the lord. The heretic will be in the neighbouring country, the Empire to be precise."

"What are the geopolitical relationship between my kingdom and the said Empire?"

"You ask many questions." He was frowning.

"It's my job; I need details to get the job done right."

"You will learn as you go, now go and spread the name of the Lord." I did not get another word that I blanked out.

* * *

 _Kingdom of Dacia, April 1908_

My next instance of consciousness was actually getting spooned something that smelled awful. I have no idea how long I was out but all I do know is that this was most definitely not mentioned in the contract. Who the hell makes a prophet suffer reincarnation? Well at least I have my memories of making the contract… well fuck it was a verbal contract… that means there is no obligation for him to follow through. Note to self, get paper signed before acquiring details, the less I know the less caught up I will be the more chances I will sign a contract.

I got very lucky, or blessed I guess I should say now, to have been reborn in this new family. I am an only child in a fairly well off Dacian family. Wait no I don't think they are called well off in this era, I suppose it would be nobility. Alright well I am born in a medium class of nobles, not close to the king but not unknown either. My father was a factory director in the capital; our family was manufacturing metal parts for the Kingdom ranging from guns to carriages. My mother was a normal housewife of a noble she supported him and handled the maids and my education.

Oh that reminds me, this education was completely different from my past life, you know why? I am now a bloody woman. I used to be a twenty-five year old man who was focused on making a career in the twenty-first century. Now I am a little girl in a kingdom at the start of the twentieth century in a kingdom that has yet to experience the industrial revolution. Our factories are not belt operated but all made by hands. I should mention that I have not mentioned anything yet as a prophet or as someone with memories. I am making a new life cleanly so far, just adhering to the demands of my new mother and fulfilling the expectations of my father.

I have learned things I am thankful for, such as the language of this world since it is clearly different from the ones I knew in my past life. So far it seems like English and French are still useable but I had to learn German to communicate with the Empire, some form of Romanian or Czech for Dacia, I am uncertain but they are my closest guess. God bless I was a good programmer so learning a new language is not difficult. I also learned things such as proper cursive writing; this for sure I never used in my past life, I can clearly sign off my name, well my new name, Naomi Desraft. I also had lessons in dance, grace and proper manners as a lady.

When I turned six years old I shocked my parents by running around the mansion we lived in. It seems my activity was always something they were worried about since I was out of control, I simply can't help it; this body has a lot more energy than I ever had before. I decided to make use of my previous life where I grew up as a cadet and eventually reserved force for the army and train this body as well for combat. Let's just say my mother almost passed out from seeing my training outfit consisting of loose pants and a simple loose shirt and covered in sweat and dirt. She tried to stop me from doing such things but I continued training regardless and even through the best effort of my mother became known around as the Tom boy of the all the noble girls. I can't say I hate the name since it makes it seem like I am tough to get and won't be played around with.

The Lord did say this world would be engulfed in war so it did not hurt to be ready; his plan is probably to make me a Jeanne d'Arc somewhere along the way. I mean she was a martyr so I am truly hoping to not turn out like her, burning at the stake sounds even worse than dying to a suicidal idiot. It seems the kingdom of Dacia is actually quite religious since we prayed before every meal and Sunday we went to church. I did not mind the habit although I wish we could have more free time as to when we prayed but that's probably my twenty-first century self talking. It was during one of these visits when I was twelve that the old man himself decided to pick a chat with me.

"How is your new life so far oh new Prophet of mine?" a voice came down in my head.

"The change of gender was a shock; I would like some reasons to that." I answered in my thoughts.

"Yes well there are many reasons to that, to begin with people are more likely to believe in a holy maiden than to a prophet of truth."

"I see, way to make it a bit awkward for me at first. On a more serious note you mentioned magic yet I have seen nothing of the sort here. How does it even work?"

"Mages in this world uses tools much like scepter or computational orbs to process mana and formulas to use magic. You on the other hand as a prophet do not need such a tool but it would make it easier."

"Good to know I can cheat the system, wait did you say computational orbs? That means it computes things and probably works like a processor right?" I was having a nasty grin on my face I could feel it, but I could feel the disapproving stare from my mother even more. "Hey Lord could you do me a favor and share some of the basic schematics to those orbs? I could have a lot of fun with this."

"Indeed my child I can see it clearly in your thoughts, a prophet of god that can manufacture work of wonders. I shall allow it then." He chuckled but once he was done I could feel the wealth of information pour into my mind and my guess was spot on, it is exactly like a computer processor.

"Thank you oh Lord for your benevolence." I finished praying.

It was not long afterwards that I was asking my father to visit the factory and see if I could try things out, learn the trade and all that stuff. Although to be honest it was all an excuse to get some materials to craft an orb for myself. He was reluctant at first but he eventually caved in and decided to show me how the office job worked.

"Naomi stop wandering off and stay next to me if you wish to learn." He once again called to me, I was always trying to get to the crafting tables but he never let his gave off of me.

"Yes father, sorry father." I respect the man but please let me do as I wish for once; I already know how these papers work.

It took until the bell rang at the end of the day that he stopped keeping an eye on me and was talking to some of the workers that I slipped away to a table full of raw material. Now my biggest problem, I know how to build the orbs but I have neither idea of the quality of materials nor how I will craft the smaller pieces. I was left pondering the issue before just stopping trying to figure it out, I was limited on time so I just took a few iron plates and put them in my small purse, small enough that no one would notice but big enough to allow some waste later.

My father did not notice my absence it seems since he did not react when I appeared once more to his side in order to go back home. I hid in my room very shortly afterwards to verify my loot and plan my design carefully. I had a total of four plates roughly ten centimetres large, twenty long and three thick. It wasn't much and I had no tools but the Lord did say I could use magic without the orb, it was just less efficient. Now how did people do it in shows? Focus my energy or conscience in my mind, imagine what I want and release at the palm… very naturally it failed much like when I was trying to make an energy beam with two hands as a kid when watching a certain show about a dragon who granted wishes. I spent the whole hour trying to summon my mana or energy or whatever to modify the metal to no avail until I got called for diner.

I returned to my room with determination in my mind, I will make it work. Since I cannot just morph the piece of metal let's try cutting it, making a cutting spell is probably easier than a shape changing one right? All I have to do is some energy around a tool and maybe some vibrations to split molecules. I took a pair of scissors I had in my room, separated the two pieces so I could have two blades. Took one in my right hand and tried again to apply some mana and this time I had a clear image of the blade to have energy instead of changing shape. The blade started a low hum with a clear purple aura around it. I was ecstatic that it actually worked and I broke into a mad giggle. Without waiting I tried to cut the metal and it went through like butter, this was perfect, I could cut any shape I wanted and thus actually craft the orb.

The actual crafting of the orb took me almost a full month; the simplest but most difficult part was to acquire some copper and some isolation material in order to allow electrical currents to flow without going everywhere. I decided to be kind of funny at the same time and constructed the entire computational orb as a cross; let me tell you that it is very difficult to design around a four point case for the insides. Simply because the form is not very free so it forces some wires to bend or be longer than necessary and limits the space inside. I cheated a bit by making some wires externally so now it looks a bit like a kite more than a cross. Well that is all fine and dandy but I did not have the core itself, the schematics given by the Lord were instructive but it does not tell me how to make a core out of thin air. As far as I know it is made of many precious metals with a gem at its source or a gem like mineral

I then decided to still try it out to see if it could help the channeling in the first place or help me cast formulas that I could not before, I may not have the processing power but I got a channel tool. I managed to create a fire in my hand which at first sounds cool until I realized that it is not because it is my magic that it won't hurt me. I curse all the stories who had me fooled. After many tests of many spells I had seen in books and shows I was a bit exhausted and laid on my bed until a knock on my door resounded. It actually sounded very distant.

"Naomi what are you doing in your room all day?" My mother came in and screamed the moment she saw me "NAOMI WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR?! YOUR EYES?!" my hair and eyes? What is wrong with them?

I forced myself to get up and walked to my mirror with my mother in a very shocked state, all I could see if my normal cute girly face with some eye bags because I was caught up in orb development. That is when I noticed it, my black hair actually had a few strikes that turned white and were actually shining a bit. If one were not careful it would actually look a bit like holy hair of an angel but since it's just my two bangs on the sides of my face it kind of lost that appeal. My eyes were also a shining purple not unlike the one the scissor blade had. I wonder what could have caused them to change, would it be because of the incomplete orb I am using. At that thought I noticed I was actually leaking a bit of mana into it continuously but not enough to notice, the moment I cut off the supply my hair and eyes turned back into its natural color or black and grey respectively.

"Naomi what just happened? Why did your hair change colour?" My mother was panicking and I could hear distant footsteps coming closer. It did not take long for my father to burst in and look at us with a worried face.

"Mother you don't have to worry so much, it just seems like a temporary side effect to my incomplete orb." I smiled back and answered honestly, I think it would be the best option here to come out as a mage.

"Orb? What are you on about Naomi?" My father asked. I proceeded to show them my incomplete rosary computational orb and explained how the magic worked. Needless to say they were both astounded. "You mean not only are you a magician but you can also build a tool for magic?" My father finally asked once they got over their shock.

"I was guided by the will of the Lord in order to accomplish this of course." It wasn't a lie and hopefully it fulfills my contract to make them more fervent believers. I was never a holy man but now to have a job that requires conversion is difficult.

"Yes of course, I mean how could a girl who is only twelve do things that only the major powers can do with teams of experts." My father was chuckling almost hysterically. "Naomi promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

"Do not show this to anyone, under any circumstances." He was dead serious in his eyes.

"I don't know if I can promise that father, it is a gift from the Lord."

"I am aware but the Kingdom will not treat it that way, in the best case you will be a concubine to the King, in the worst you are burned at the stake for heresy." Oh I guess I did not see that one coming. Is the God really that twisted, he told me this country could use me to advance and now from someone on the inside I am told it will refuse it. Guess I need to play my cards right if I am to make it work.

"I understand father, I shall do my best."

It seems this second life as holy maiden will not be covered in roses, I actually have to convert people with a war that will happen god knows where, pun intended. On top of it all I should aim to convert a heretic in the neighbouring country. Now those are the easy parts, the rest is all how to survive my birth country's state of affair in regards to magic and faith since women does not have a lot of rights in this era not to mention a pre-industrial state.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

Hello Everyone, GenShadow here once more, hope everyone is enjoying this new fanfic I got going on following an OC (original character) of mine, Naomi Desraft. Did everyone catch all the references she has made over the course of this chapter? The journal was coming to a halt soon while waiting for content and i wanted another fan fiction going and i got this crazy idea to make an actual apostle show up that isn't some revenge deranged woman like Mary. Fun fact, it is almost impossible to get an idea for a fan fiction without an OC or taking the canon universe for a wild spin out of control which becomes obsolete season 2 airs or manga/LN translation catches up. I tried and failed so hope you guys will enjoy this new spin i am trying to give it.

To make it simple she is just a shepherd to God (or Being X, your pick) who has the knowledge and magical gifts to make her own orb and using magic looks pretty obvious on her.

Let me know what you guys think in the reviews of DM and look forward to when Tanya visits this OC, spoiler alert, it's not just ANY factory her father owns ;)

 **Trivia details for those who were unfamiliar with some terms:**  
 **RRSP** \- Registered Retirement Savings Plan, a plan to get a pension from the government, arguably good arguably bad but reliable in the end.  
 **TFSA** \- Tax Free Savings Account, does exactly what it means, the catch is you pay the tax BEFORE depositing the money into the account.  
 **Canadian Healthcare system** \- covers most emergencies and visits to family doctors and hospitals. does NOT cover drugs you be prescribed among other things. Insurance covers those, coming out of your paychecks either with your company benefit plan or a personal plan.  
 **Montreal metro** \- quite literally only covers the downtown island, its pathetic considering the size of the metropolis and the town is always in construction.  
 **'muricans** \- stereotypical name of the stereotype american, quite literally the OC just saying he got trampled by obese people on boxing deal rush.  
the Error in design i mention is the **Therac-25** ( google it) an interesting read of what motivated actual standards for software designs.


	2. Chapter 2: Dacian Wife for hire

Quick Author Note

I have received some words of incomprehension as to WHY exactly I had gender bended my OC since it seems I was too short on explanations so a quick one here:

It is in the spirit of Youjo Senki to gender bend, it is also easier for an author such as me to create difficulties to overcome to a female character in those times than a male. I can also play a lot of jokes I could not if the character was male. I could have been boring and kept as male, seduced Visha and what not but I considered that route as mediocre compared to going female and having lots of fun messing with lots of characters since Naomi is a lot more liberal than any other women at the time. Look forward to it.

Quick note, due to changing languages I prepend all different tongues as seen:  
 _French_ Francois Republic  
 _English_ United Kingdom of Albion  
 _German_ Empire (soon default so will not be tagged)  
 _Dacian_ Dacia (currently not tagged)

* * *

June 1920 Unified year

It has been roughly two years since I have shown my parents that I was a mage, not that many things have happened since. If anything my education took a different turn, my mother was doubling down on teaching how be a proper lady instead of jumping around and experimenting with magic while my father is allowing me more freedom in the factory. They are complete opposites when it comes down to my gifts from God and it is actually entertaining to listen in on their debates of my future. My father seems convinced that due to my stubbornness and gift I shall take over the factory the moment I marry a business man in the nobility while my mother has decided that I should marry any nobleman and serve as a proper wife and lady of the court.

Truth be told, I really don't want to get married in this lifetime. I am like most people and ask the question, what would it be to become the opposite gender for a day and of course everyone answers sexual sprees. Now that I am given the chance for a lifetime in the opposite gender, that idea has died out really fast especially considering the era's level of hygiene and that is all the details you will get out of me. Okay one more thing on top of that, it is NOT MY hygiene that comes into question, just wanted to get that straight.

I have accomplished a few things in the time since I was warned to keep my gift a secret, first and foremost I can actually dance well for a twelve year old girl, I am extremely fit thanks to modern military grade training I did on my own, can communicate fluently in four languages and can perform magic tricks. My father has given me more freedom at the factory which has allowed me to learn and maneuver some equipment which has made my custom orb version two-point-o very slick looking. It is now twice as thick as a regular Rosary, doesn't look like a kite anymore and has proper jewels at each end as core components.

Before anyone asks, yes I did abuse my young girl looks to get some gems from my father; no it is not unfair since it is a weapon given by God to myself. These were small diamonds that needed refining through some magic manipulation and a bit of work to actually establish some circuitry and get some computation going. This may sound pretty crazy but I got pretty darn greedy with my engineering and I went over the knowledge that God had given me and abused what I knew from my past life. It means that I passed the boundaries and innovated, so now I have a hex core computational jewel. I have no idea if it is any good compared to major powers but one thing is certain, I have the best software around.

It actually happened one afternoon that a knock rang on my door and my father came in only to stop in full shock of what I was doing. I was sitting cross legged on a chair in front of a desk I had set up as workshop with my Rosary on full display in the center. What shocked him was not that I was in my regular clothing of pants and dress shirt but possibly the fact that I had actual screens open in midair, straight out from modern science fiction.

"Naomi what are you doing?" he asked after I looked at him a bit weird.

"I am just optimizing my circuitry by integrating proper task prioritization and interruption services, I am also trying to implement proper multithreading in the design to make sure my slave cores don't idle too long. That would simply be a waste of resources." I answered simply with a smile.

"That makes no sense at all." He was even more dumbfounded.

"That is odd considering it is all based on logic statements and reasons." He frowned. "All it means is that when I send in more than one spell it can split the task among the cores and execute it faster for simultaneous results rather than one at a time."

"You are very incomprehensible to me you know. What am I to do with you?" He shook his head.

"Father did you come only to praise the gifts the Lord has given me or was there something else?" I asked, he rarely disturbed my free time for no reason at all, and he looked very shifty today.

"Yes, you will accompany in the north. This is an important part of the business that you need to learn, how to negotiate with your material providers."

Oh human interactions, that is actually in the opposite direction of my specialty. You see most people such as me major in computers because they hate interacting with humans, I am no exception which makes my job as a prophet even more awkward but a trip doesn't sound bad for said contract. Our departure was unfortunately delayed since I had to fight with my mother; she was determined to help me only pack dresses and cute clothes while I fought to pack pants, overalls and regular dress shirts. In the end I had two suitcases of clothes, this was a terrible compromise by my father but it will do since in the end I dress myself up in the morning.

Our family took a carriage to travel, the simple kind where we seat a total of six but only three of us rode inside while we had an escort on both sides. Our destination was completely up to the north where there were mountains and mines and thus took a few days to reach from the Capital that was in the plains to the complete south of the kingdom. I did enjoy the natural sight everywhere considering most the fields did not cover the land we took, I could not enjoy such sights from airplanes or bullet trains in my previous life so for once I allowed myself to act like a kid on a field trip. Well at least I tried but it never lasted due to my mother reprimanding me every time I tried.

Without event we reached the hotel we would reside for our dealings, it was a simple establishment but it was well built with marble and three stories of rooms. It was fairly obvious it was for nobles who dealt in the area with distant partners since most travellers would not be able to afford this kind of luxury.

"Naomi please change to a pretty dress, I refuse to be embarrassed with your tastes." My mother ordered me; she was basing it on the fact that I chose cargo pants (self-made) with a dress shirt and a sort of corset-vest for travelling.

"Yes mother." I accepted since this was an important dealing for my father and the nobles have their own rules, little did she know I packed a long dress with some stretchy pants (once more self-made because my mother tries to get rid of all my pants). Thus I went to the carriage once more wearing my secret pants, a long dress that exposed a bit too much of my top and half my back but it was what my mother wished. Although I got a very surprised look from my father so it seems even a twelve year old such as myself can shock people. We made it to the mansion without incident and once arrived we were welcomed by two rows of maids and a few butlers along with the master of the house.

"Albert, long time no see." My father called out to him.

"Indeed it has my friend, the last time was when I brought my son to play with your daughter in the capital when they were barely up to my knee. Look at her now she is up to my shoulders and looks absolutely fantastic." He was smiling at me as he was welcoming us.

"It is good to see you in great health Uncle Albert." I made a slight bow while lifting a bit of my skirt to prevent it from rubbing against the ground. If you ask me this bow was stupid as it revealed my chest a bit too much but my mother demanded proper etiquettes which did not care about morals.

"Now then I sure hope we won't have to get to business so soon, come join me inside and let us catch up." On his invitation we made his way inside to his living room, of course drinks were distributed which included the good kinds such as whiskey and rum but they only laughed when I asked for my own share. I swear waiting to be of age to drink again is depressing to an incredible level.

"So tell me Albert, how your son is doing these days?" my father asked.

"Oh he does things as he normally does, like his mother, he does nothing but sits in the background and help with paperwork but I cannot get him to stand up and do anything else. He refuses to visit the mines, refuses to discuss business to anyone other than myself and even refuses to attend events. He won't even come out of his room when there are visitors as close to our family as yourself." He ranted and he seemed very exasperated on top of it all. I never had a child so I cannot say anything but I can imagine what it would be to have someone who is too shy to do anything.

"Apologies Naomi but it seems you won't escape us this time with him." My father smirked and all I could do was smile and nod. I had no interest in playing like I did with him in the past, he was a good excuse to get some physical exercise in but so far in the game he would only slow me down.

"Now how about your daughter Mark? She seems to be very well educated and has manners of the highest court, I cannot read her smile." The attention turned towards me.

"She is a handful, the only reason you see this side of her is because her mother is around, you will see what I mean when we talk business as she will assist me."

"Hoh? You say this little lady will talk business with an old man such as myself? Tell me young miss, how do you discuss business?" Only a direct question would allow me to speak in these discussions, these times were harsh on women especially the higher you went up the ladder.

"I discuss cutthroat dear uncle and I highly recommend you cooperate." I answered with a smile. He burst out in laughs and slapped his knee.

"This little lass is making me wish to discuss business right away. Here is a question for you though, do you fancy any of the capital boys?" I tilted my head almost immediately in confusion.

"Albert I know where you are going with this but it simply will not work." My father sighted.

"Ah come on Mark, even if she is only mediocre in business her sheer attitude could straighten out my boy."

"Yes but he would be like a ball and chain to her, it would limit her potential."

"Pah! The limit of a woman is in how she can help her man both in bed and in business. Naomi has the looks for the bed and seems to have the attitude for business."

"Then you must understand that I simply cannot give her to a man with little business potential."

"I am getting him up, he just needs someone to do the dealing and he can handle the rest."

"I refuse Albert and that will be final."

Both men went to their drinks as I sat there with an awkward smile. This had become a routine discussion every time I was around nobles and to be honest it was getting dull. Most noble sons were fat useless pigs, young dangerous fellows abusing their money and authority or absolutely useless shut ins like this one discussed. My father keeps rejecting saying that they will only ruin my potential but that was evaluated by what uncle Albert said, bed skills and back scene business planning. My skills from my previous life were highly sought after so many contenders showed up but none convinced my dad. None were capable of taking over his factory, which was his main criteria, and not the fact that it should be a half decent person. I was a bargaining ship to be given away such was the noble's life. The discussion ended up as a regular catching up talk and we followed with a diner. Luke, his son, joined us but stayed quiet but I noticed he was stealing some gazes at me or more like my almost exposed chest.

"Naomi you should take a walk with Luke to catch up as friends before we start business." Uncle Albert proposed which caused my father to frown but since he was the host I could not refuse his request and bowed to him. I followed Luke to the outside yard where we started walking next to each other, both of us staying very quiet, him for his anxiety and me because I hate dealing with people and knew not how to start a discussion.

"You grew up beautiful." He suddenly spoke.

"Thank you Luke, unfortunately I cannot say you grew up handsome, if anything you gained weight and will have to roll around if you keep it up." He chuckled but he knew I was right, a decade will definitely make him obese since he doesn't move much.

"I am sorry about my father, he is probably still trying to pair us up, he has had that idea for almost a decade and he never stops mentioning it to me whenever he can." He apologized.

"Do not worry too much about it, it is to be expected of him, he needs to find a nice gal for his son." I smiled awkwardly.

"I think it is more the fact that our families are friends, he never mentions any other woman of my age except for you. With how you are looking today he will probably push even harder."

"You know Luke, you are a nice guy, but from where I come from we say that nice guys always come in last place." I smirked at the thought of my previous life; relationships became a game of consumption rather than love.

"The capital sure is a mean place." He sighted.

"Yes the capital of course." Oops I need to remember I am not from North America anymore, I take a lot of liberties doing things that would be okay in the twenty first century but not as a woman in the early twentieth.

"Naomi?" he said after a small silence.

"What is it?"

"What do you honestly think about me?"

"A nice guy but a useless man."

"So fast."

"It was predictable."

"I see, I am nothing special now am I."

"Pretty much but that doesn't mean God has abandoned you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well you may not have my heart but that doesn't mean you will die alone. You simply need to have faith and one day he will send you a nice girl to share your life with." I gave him an honest smile with teeth.

"You know you have a wonderful smile."

"Keep teasing me and your future mistress may get jealous."

"Thank you."

"What for?"

"Being honest and having faith in a useless man such as myself."

"Ah cheer on up you are still too young to worry about such things."

"I am already fourteen you know, in age to be married you know." I could only chuckle but he wasn't wrong, just a child yet should be married in this country. I miss my free northern country. We returned to our parents in good mood which made my father sigh and uncle Albert gleam with hope, everyone has given up on pairing us except for him. If even his useless son has understood I do not know what it says about this man. We were preparing the business talk, Luke was sitting in the back with paperwork and making some order out of them, my father prepared his own while uncle Albert set up a map and a bit of papers while I sat there tying my hair up. My mother insists on my hair being kept down but for business I will always run a ponytail while leaving both forward bangs free. I find it makes me look pretty good especially if I start using magic. I may have forgotten to mention it but no one but my parents know of my magical gifts but everyone is aware that I always wear a Rosary.

"Alright, Mark I have opened a few more mines in the recent years and based on prospectors could possibly open more in the following five years. These lands are rich in iron and hematite; we can make strong Dacian steel from this for your factories in the capital, the problem is the shipping of raw materials is long and costly and you end up with a lot of waste."

"Why not just purify the ore?" I jumped in immediately.

"Lass I understand your enthusiasm but the mens are speaking here." He gave me a cold look.

"Calm down Albert, she is my negotiator, I will sit this one out unless if she gets ridiculous." My father chuckled.

"Interesting." He smiled. "So miss how do you suggest we purify the ore?"

"Iron can easily be purified from the rock by quick smelting, the rock will not melt but the iron will, collect that and send ingots reducing waste by an incredible amount. Hematite is a different material and will not melt as easily and thus should just be sent as such as we can produce the steel with minimal waste this way. Of course the optimal solution would be to have a smelter somewhere close by to the mines to only ship out steel to our factories which can then produce goods." I drafted this plan a long time ago and he won't ruin my presentation. The plan is always simple and efficient, analyze, understand, draft, revise, review and then present.

"You wish for US to open a smelter for YOU?" He was shocked.

"Oh no we wouldn't dare ask you to pay the costs of such a project! Instead we will open a smelter in your domain that you shall ship to and we will handle everything from there."

"I understand, this sure cuts down my cost of shipping it to the capital and makes it such that no waste will be sent to you. I can sell you the ores straight from the mines at roughly twelve silver coins a kilo."

"I refuse!" I was insulted.

"And why do you refuse my offer? It is a fair price?" he seemed shocked and so were my father and Luke.

"You insult me if you believe I will accept such a price." I stood as straight as I could with an exaggerated motion of reject with my right hand. "We currently pay twelve silver per kilo and this includes the shipping to the capital. In this new deal we will be opening in your town, means your shipping has no risk thus no need of escorts this is two silver per kilo at the very least. Remove the distance of the carriers means no lodging or food that is also at least two silver per kilo. We are attracting people to your town, which means your domain and thus your taxes which makes you gain money at our expense. Either you cut us a fair deal or we find another supplier." I left the whole room in shock, my words were harsh especially to someone who was a family friend but I cut no mercy for someone who tries to play us.

"Well then Mark, it seems you weren't kidding, she bites." Uncle Albert whistled.

"Indeed, I did not know she had this thought out but she did and it was shocking."

"Alright miss, I will cut you at ten silver per kilo since the smelter will take time to build and we do not want to swallow a loss for a long time."

"See? We can do business." I smiled.

"I still cannot read your smile, you are amazing young miss." I kept up my smile, the rest of the business was more nitty gritty detail of how it would happen, where we would install the smelter and how delivery would be taken care of. All I got for my effort was a pat on the back by my father though, he is too prideful to admit I was better than him but he was grateful enough to recognize my work. I guess I can work with that.

* * *

April 1922 Unified Year

Another two years have passed and this time it was fun packed. I made a reputation as a demon negotiator for business, expanded our factories with smelters and deals with many providers. Needless to say I was pushing this kingdom to the industrial revolution through a single company. This proved very difficult since half the talks were done by my father who did not share the same understanding of the concepts and thus some deals fell flat but some saw the wisdom and agreed to fair terms. The most difficult part must be that my value as a noblewoman were ever increasing, some would say my assets were growing. As much as I hate it, I actually went through female puberty and boy was that awkward! The worst part is how I become flat out useless a few days a month, I understand what all the girls were saying in my previous life, this bloody sucks, all puns intended. Physically I become bedridden and mentally I become an actual child due to my wild mood swings so I lock myself up to prevent accidents and confusion. This although meant to both my parents that I am ready to be married since I could carry children now, yet no potential factory heir showed up for my father to accept and that is why I now find myself in another reception for nobles to meet. These receptions, soirées or parties were held for the purpose of networking and flirting with other nobles of similar age for marriage purposes or family alliances and all those shenanigans.

"Is your father still giving you a hard time?" Luke asked.

"Not even him, it's more my mother that wishes to see a grandchild before anything else." I sighted.

"Well I can understand the feeling, she is not getting younger." He chuckled awkwardly.

We were both at this reception standing around with a drink in our hand, well water because not allowed alcohol, can you believe kids can get married before they can drink alcohol. God please have some mercy and show these people common sense. I got no answer, probably because it was selfish and not part of my prophet duty.

"I am glad to see you started to exercise more, you may have lost some weight since I last saw you a few months ago." I teased him.

"Yeah I feel like I have more energy now, your recommendations for exercises worked great and were truly simple."

"Efficiency is what I do best my friend."

"Haha indeed miss Demon."

"I don't like being lied to you know, I prefer fair deals." We both laughed since it all started with his father. I was then called over to my mother who was discussing with other noblewoman, the typical gossip I can assume.

"Naomi we wish to see our children perform for us, it seems you are the only one capable of playing more than one instrument."

"I have only learned what my mother has shown me." I always tried to maintain a humble attitude for nobility talk, I found out it was much safer that way since arrogance from a woman was considered the worst trait and would ruin our family in the social aspect.

"Your daughter is too modest Liza, please pick the instrument you wish to play and join the others." I bowed once more before reaching the small gazeebo they had in the yard. There must have been roughly a dozen young ladies such as myself around and we tried to organize ourselves a bit beforehand. I say tried because they were all busy passing normal gossips and proper talk without discussing what song we would play. In the situation I just picked up my violin, we always packed this for receptions because showing off our house skills were mandatory when seeking a husband so says my mother, and starting tuning it a bit. The sound was close enough to that of the twenty first century models in my honest opinion and I have heard enough songs to be able to play most by ear. At this sight the other ladies also picked up their instruments ranging from other violin to some guitars to flutes and even a piano that was set up. The eldest decided to not pick one up and to be a singer, this will be interesting.

Once the maids were done setting up the chairs and the adults were seated, mostly the ladies while the men's stayed far and continued their discussions while keeping a loose eye on us. We started off with a simple traditional song which went surprisingly well; our singer was actually performing well and had a solid voice. I cannot say I know her personally but she was good at her role. Our group performance please the old ladies a lot in fact it even got some of the man interested and they were discussing about which of us girls would be best to wed their sons. Of course these parties were receptions for such discussions in the first place, that is why it did not take long for the old ladies to play their card and ask for individual performances. Naturally everyone stepped out of the gazeebo when it was not their turn but we all kept the same instruments. If I have to say anything, it is that girls of this age in this era, were much, much better musicians than those in my previous life. All I remember from my younger days in North America were kids playing on their Ipods but no real musicians showed up except the odd ones who played since they were kids, much like us young ladies really.

It finally reached my turn since I was last; I hate standing out and usually try to stand where people forget about me. This got me out of it these last few months but this time my mother kept her eyes on me and I was forced to perform. This actually got everyone interested since they all knew about me for business and saw me play but never alone so they never got to judge how good I truly was. I had two reasons never to play alone for a public performance; the first is because I hate being the center of attention unless it is a small group for a professional presentation, the second because God in his mighty generosity made me a cheater. It seems that anything I put effort into I can accomplish hence why my mother mentioned multiple instruments of high quality performance when she bragged about me. I can effectively play piano, flute, fiddle and guitar now and all at a pretty high level which was ridiculous. It goes without saying that I need to put in some effort but the easiest way to explain way would be an experience multiplier, for example if someone needs two years to learn something, I take a year and a half. I could argue this is excessive but I suppose he wants his prophet do be able to do whatever they need to, I am still screaming for nerfs but so far have only noticed it in music.

Enough of that, I had to play but I surprised everyone by not stepping into the gazeebo to present. I had an idea for a performance because if I am to do something I hate, which is doing a performance, I might as well do it amazing and I have seen enough videos in my previous life to know how to pull it off and taken the right lessons in this life. Watch out world, I am two universe in one. I started playing and dancing at the same time which shocked people, who the hell dances in a dress made to be tight and restrain movement because it looks amazing. I was playing the violin while dancing around, moving my body in a fluid manner, swinging side to side, a few twists of the hips, stepping around on my stage, a few twirls and sharp moves. I was ever moving around while playing smoothly. I could only smile, I mean I was actually reproducing the dancing fiddler roughly ninety years before her time. I kept dancing and playing to a point where I was going off more on my ears and memory than actual physical senses so to the audience it must look like my eyes were half closed and I was grinning weirdly but to me it was almost magical. Magic is a science and thus it can be explained but this moment could not be reasoned with and it was mine to enjoy.

When I finished a few minutes later the audience was breathless and sat there in silence which made me super uncomfortable, I was actually sweating for once in a long time and they gave me silence in return. I quickly check to make sure my dress did not rip in any embarrassing manner while I was dancing. I sighed in relief when it was surprisingly in good condition without a tear. That was Luke started his applause from behind the crowd. It did not take long for everyone else to follow suit, I was showered with more applause than any of the other girls which made some of them take haughty looks but most were good sports and also applauded my efforts. Unfortunately it seems my value as a wife went up again. The worse part of the reception happens after the whole party, it is when the parents actually lead the meetings between potentials they approve and decide our fate there and then. So far I have been lucky and I pray that I keep being that way. Well that was crushed the moment I joined my father at his invitation and was met with two unknown men who were wearing different clothing than our kingdoms.

"Naomi I must introduce you to these men's, he is known as Louis Lecuyer and he is Benoit Chatalier. They come from the Republic to discuss business but have seemed to have found something else" my father was smiling and to be honest that was bad news for me.

 _French_ "Dear miss, it is a pleasure to meet you and I am Loui Lecuyer. You performed marvellously and I have heard great things of your work with your father" The first man, looking in his early twenties reached to shake my hand. He looked half decent but he had a clear arrogance in his voice and seemed to look down on me.

 _French_ "I appreciate the compliments mister but it is only thanks to what my mother has taught me that I was able to perform in such a manner." I answered politely as I bowed, I did not shake his hand because a woman of the kingdom does not shake hands with men.

 _French_ "Haha it seems the young lady does not fancy you lad. Forgive him miss for he is young, it is an honor to meet you, I am Benoit Chatalier and I come from the Francois Republic." This man looked in his forties and did not try to shake my hand, seems he knows his culture a bit better.

 _French_ "Now how may we be of help to you gentlemen's?" my father asked.

 _French_ "We were very interested in your company due to its incredible expansion and we were seeking some cooperation. You see we would have investors ready to pay for some Dacian products if you could produce the quality they demand."

 _French_ "It would be our pleasure, of course numbers would have to be discussed at a later date but this deal sounds very interesting."

 _French_ "Indeed although we were more looking into a single company working in two countries if you know what I mean." The one called Benoit spoke in vague terms but it was fairly easy to understand, he wishes to buy us out.

 _French_ "That would depend on the offer of course." My father played it cautiously.

 _French_ "A simple unison of course, your daughter is simply wonderful, known as a demon negotiator yet modest, elegant and talented. I am sure this can serve everyone's best interests." He looked at me like an old pervert would look at his new toy.

 _French_ "I am afraid that you would be too old for her." My father played a safe exit card; thank the lord to which Benoit only chuckled.

 _French_ "It would not be me but sir Lecuyer here has yet to wed and is a talented son of a co-owner of our company. He is even a skillful business man and to our biggest surprise, is even able to do some low level of magic. His classification was of level B which would make him military level but he instead works for us and follows in his father's footsteps." My father was actually interested and it showed on his face, someone who was a promising young talent in a bigger company, could do magic and was bringing in foreign investors, the deal was delicious to sell me.

 _French_ "My apologies mister Chatalier but I must be off; my day has been long and the performance draining. I look forward to our business meeting." I bowed as I walked away before my father could say anything. Staying would be dangerous and being sold off was one of the worst thing that could happen to me honestly. I am fine being a noble but being treated as an object to be sold was insulting. Oh god is this how modern women feel, gosh this is horrible. I will need to apologize to too many people if I ever go back.

 _French_ "It is pretty adorable how she is shy" I heard from Louis.

 _French_ "My apologies, usually she is more headstrong than this, I am sure she will come around." I heard my father say, like hell I will! This is bullshit! My feelings of both anger and rushing away must have been obvious as most people stepped away from me when I walked by. Well except for Luke, he stepped in front.

"What happened to make you like this?" He actually looked worried.

"Oh nothing big, just me being sold off as part of business expansion." I had a sarcastic smile.

"Your father found someone he accepts?"

"Yeah, some guy from the Republic, he probably has at least ten years on me and is a mage. The marriage would be to unite their company with ours for business in both countries."

"I see how your father would agree to that, a very strong heir for sure. I do not think our country has anything to beat that considering how we do not have mages of our own." He started pondering.

"Oh please, him being a mage is not the selling factor, it is just that it is the son of a co-owner that sold my father on the idea."

"So what will you do? Accept your father or fight him? As far as I can tell there is no way for a woman to refuse the man her father has chosen"

"I have no idea, I could make him not interested in me but I am sure they do not care about that. I am almost certain they wish for the acquisition of our very profitable company more than my possession."

"This means even if you scarred yourself, amputated and whatever else, they would still take you for the company."

"Basically I am done for because he is the first my father seems to agree with." I sighted. Honestly even if I scared him away I doubt it would have much value, how would I even scare him away? He is a mage so I cannot make myself treated like a witch, physical marks would mean nothing other than remind me it was pointless. I would quite literally have to prove myself somehow better off left alone than wed. Wait a second, what if my father was the one to get scared and not the other party?

"Naomi, you are scaring me, what are you thinking about?" Luke suddenly asked.

"Just you wait and see."

I proceeded to make my way inside the building and to our carriage, we always pack extra clothing for whatever accident could happen and I always pack practical clothing. It wasn't hard to get them out and hide myself inside the carriage itself to change with the blinds closed. I always feel more comfortable wearing cargo pants with a dress shirt and this sort of corset vest. Now that I could move freely I tied my hair up in my favorite ponytail and walked back to the venue, apparently my change in appearance was so great some did not recognize me but one thing is for sure I got many disapproving looks. I secured an empty wooden box from one of the tables and made my way back to the gazeebo where I dropped it as an improvised stage and picked up my fiddle. If I am to scare my father I need to make a message clear and available to everyone at the same time since individually I will be ignored. A fair amount of people were now looking at me since it was another presentation and from afar it looked like it was from a new girl, the best was when I noticed my father recognizing me and started to make his way towards me. That is when I started the fun part; I poured some of my magic into my Rosary which turned my front bangs white and my eyes purple which caused an immediate wave of stupor in the venue from which I could see even Luke frowned at the sight.

"Hello everyone!" My magic worked as I used it to amplify all sounds coming from my stage, wave amplification is simple physics. "Forgive me for performing one more time and disturbing your conversations." With that being said I brought my fiddle to my shoulder and started playing the first couple of notes and this time I was using the box of a stage as a drum I would bang on with my feet. Think of it as tap dancing a drum while playing a fiddle which was then amplified to the venue through magic. Now the fun part, I sang and this was a pirate song I knew from my previous life, it wasn't offensive so to say but approached some classless behavior that most noble would frown upon.

 _Every tavern in this town, every rathole, every bar,  
prepare for being boarded cause we're back from naval war._

 _Crack Open every barrel, let the wine and whiskey free._

 _Let's drink for all the mates that we lost out there at sea._

 _Hear the clapping of the gang plank as it reaches for the pier,_

 _And eighteen hundred sea legs disembark from the frontier._

 _Every man and every woman, every lad and every lass,_

 _Drag your tails down to the dockside if you want some piece of ass._

 _ **IT'S OUR FIRST NIGHT BACK IN PORT!**_

 _Let's drink, let's fight!_

 _Let's fornicate by the harbour lights!_

 _Let's fuck, let's bite!_

 _Let's dance away the night!_

 _(bis X2)_

It seems it was getting back in people's mind that I was the same girl that was like the dancing fiddler earlier, now I am the tap drumming fiddler and singer. I may not have the manly voice for the sailor songs but I am sure the words and overall beat were getting to people. I mean, the ladies seemed offended at the fornicating part while some of the men were laughing amongst themselves. I do not really care about other's opinions but I was getting a message across that I was a special lass that wouldn't accept just any man especially if it was just for business. I finished the song soon after and bowed to the crowd without the dress holding part. I proceeded to stop the mana flow and my hair and eyes returned to normal. Within a heartbeat my father was at my side grabbing my arm with great strength, enough that I was losing blood flow but he did not seem to notice my grimace.

"What do you think you are doing?" He was strongly whispering.

"Getting my point across that the pretty lady is nothing but an act, you cannot just sell me to another country and retire."

"You have to think of the bigger plan here Naomi, stop acting like a spoiled child and accept what you are."

"You want me to accept what I am? Fine, I am a prophet of God who doesn't have the time to be doing these high society bullshit receptions. I should be out there helping people with their faith rather than practice how to please an idiotic noble in his household."

"Everyone can be a prophet, if you wanted to be a nun you should have mentioned it earlier but now it is far too late, I have put too much time and money into you to just throw you to an abbey. You will marry someone who can take the company even higher."

"I refuse." I looked him straight in the eyes and I could see his anger rising to newfound levels. It did not take him long to finally lose patience and drag me away to the carriage with my mother following without another word. I was roughly thrown inside and warned not to leave while my mother supervised me as he left, probably to apologize to what would have been my French husband. I could only smile at the havoc I had caused; surely this blunder on our family would not hurt our business since they knew my game face yet would considerably reduce our social outings for finding me a husband.

"Why have you done such a thing?" my mother asked.

"Because I refuse to be sold off to a noble who will lock me in his mansion like some prize and make off with all my hard work as his own."

"My poor girl, this is how life is to us woman, we accompany our man in public events, we make them happy and relaxed at home and we work hard for their enterprise without demanding credit."

"That is not a life I want."

"But that is the life you will get, the sooner you accept that the easier things will become."

"That is no life to me and I will fight for my right to freedom."

"Your fight, if it is anything like today, will only yield grief for us all. Just be a good girl and follow your fathers decision."

I did not bother to answer, this is like talking to a wall. She is determined to make me accept this era's fate of woman as nothing more than a man's trophy and I refuse to end up that way both for my pride and my contract. I cannot do much if I stayed locked up; I need a way out of this lifestyle and fast. Could God you know, accelerate that war? Those cause a lot of confusion and many go… missing… in those times or at least I could take advantage of it and not disappoint my family by going as a noble to help the frontlines and by that I mean logistic. You wouldn't catch me risking my life in the line of fire.

Our return to our home was made in absolute silence, my father did not utter a single word but we could all feel his anger. I can only assume his apology did not go well which is honestly a good sign for me. Unfortunately once back at our home I got myself some solid yelling sessions with him where he so kindly reminded me of my role as a woman, stay quiet, obey the man, please him in entertainment and bed and most of all work for his goal and company without worrying for just credit of the work done. I was then sentenced to home confinement for a few weeks which honestly was a blessing as I closed up and focused on making my orb rosary more useful. More optimization is always possible and always a good thing. The news came soon afterwards; the Legadonia Entente had a change in government and were showing more signs of incredible nationalism.

* * *

 _ **Actual Author's Notes**_

Hello everyone, GenShadow again.

Before anyone says anything, NAOMI IS NOT A CHEATER! She naturally has a talent for music but refuses to accept it, everything else she does is normal average skill, she doesn't actually have an experience multiplier but she won't realize it because she did not play music in her previous life.

I do apologize for this Dacian chapter, I am trying to NOT rush to the war and build some character first but I do understand not everyone cares about that and wish to see how I integrate this whole thing with Tanya. This chapter may seem awkward to some but that is because it was very weird for me to write while balancing both so please excuse me this one and look forward to where things truly pick up next chapter.

Big thank you to FST-magician once again for drawing my cover image, starting a big I.O.U. list here.

As per usual do message or review if you have any questions, worries, got offended? And look forward to the next chapter.

TRIVIA:  
Dancing Fiddler: Look up Lindsey Stirling on youtube, absolutely amazing what she does.  
The pirate song is "First night back in port" by "Ye Banished Privateers" and is actually very catchy and amazing, easily the best 360 video I have ever seen but that's not why I picked it lol.


	3. Chapter 3: Determined Daughter for Hire

**Authors Rant:**

Yen Press has managed to confuse us all with a very good translation all around except for Dacia where the title has kept changing, quite literally the name has been Grand Duchy of Dacia, Kingdom of Dacia and now Principality of Dacia, which is official I do not know but I will roll with latest version.

* * *

It was a lovely evening in the Principality of Dacia, the sun was still in the sky but it was quickly darkening into a beautiful shade of reddish orange. This was quite enjoyable to a crowd sitting in a room with an open balcony, drinking some fine aged wine and listening to some piano. Unfortunately I could not be part of those enjoying the moment as I was part of those creating this lovely atmosphere. We are once more receiving my now official fiancé, Louis Lecuyer, in our home in the Dacian capital. I simply cannot stress enough my displeasure of the decision my father has taken in the last couple of months. He has been completely oblivious to my side of the story and sold me out to the Republican to condemn me to a life as a housewife, my scare tactics did not work.

 _French_ "You truly are gifted in the art of music my dear." He complimented me once again as he sipped his wine and I finished the melody.

 _French_ "Truly your words are too kind for I am still learning." I answered automatically, I was getting tired of this routine of playing the good girl.

 _French_ "Mister Desraft we do not wish to pressure you but we were hoping to hold the ceremony in my home country soon."

 _French_ "I understand but you must give us face on the fact that your country is now at war with the Empire, making the trip will be time consuming as we have to go around the war zones."

 _French_ "Of course understand and the Carberius Company is willing to pay you the ship fare the moment you are willing to depart. My partner, Benoit, should be arriving soon with the transports to the Republic."

 _French_ "That would be a wonderful trip then; I see no problems but for now please enjoy my countries specialties."

 _French_ "Indeed this wine is just right and leaves a wonderful aftertaste that you do not get from my home land. Wine is an extraordinary product that can always taste good and is just never the same in every country."

As they were blowing their own horns together I decided to get up from my seat, perform a short bow because it was now ingrained in me as proper manners and make my way towards the exit. I simply need to find a way out of this marriage as time is running out very fast.

"Where are you going Naomi?" my father called out in Dacian which was a nice change of pace considering we have only discussed in Republican in the last few days thanks to my fiancé.

"To get a breath of fresh air." I answered coldly, I have lost most of the respect I had for this man the moment he sold me out against my will for the sake of his retirement.

"Leave your rosary behind." He ordered in a voice that made even Louis raise an eyebrow.

"Come and take it then." I shot back with an angry eye but as expected he was too coward to confront me in physical combat. Like many men, he feared what a mage could especially due to their inexistence in Dacia to begin with. As he stayed seated I made my way to our garden to take advantage of the cooling air in summer evening to clear my mind.

A marriage in this era for a woman means you shut up, give him a good time in bed and did not embarrass him in public outings. That is the life of a woman and it is honestly depressing, leaving aside the fact that I should be a prophet; it is not even a life that a normal human being would wish for. The scare tactics I tried to employ did not work as it seems that Louis was more of a pervert than I anticipated and only dreamed of breaking me.

 _French_ "Lovely evening is it not?" He called out to me, fucking damn it to hell, he just had to ruin one of the few moments I could get with the nice environment and air.

 _French_ "Since you walked out without my father, I must assume you are also tired of playing this game with me" I coldly answered, I hated wasting time on these things. He stopped right next to me and also watched the same pond we had with some small fishes. We have unfortunately came to a quick understand that I am not the nice girl of the nobility and he seems to enjoy speaking to me without my father a lot. Needless to say I am the most irritated at those moments.

 _French_ "While the game is amusing it simply does not bring me the same joy as watching you be your true self, a strong woman."

 _French_ "The true irony is how normally I would respect such an opinion, were it not followed by the disgusting desire to break and make me submit to your will."

 _French_ "Small details that should be expected of a woman, do you not agree?" He was wearing a disgusting smile as he looked to me in what I would describe as a lecherous schemers face but that is probably an understatement.

 _French_ "I do not! Return to the house and my father before I truly lose my patience, I truly need this moment alone right now." I started to walk away as I waved him away.

 _French_ "Do you truly believe you can walk away from me at this point? You already belong to me woman." He said as he grabbed my waving hand. I clicked my tongue in anger and struggled to free it, in the following tussle I quickly came to understand that even though I trained very hard to my once modern regimes, it simply does not compensate for all the genetic advantage he had over me. In the quick fight we both managed to lose our balance on smooth roles and fall, I hit my head a bit hard on solid ground which made me wince in pain and only served to amplify my anger.

 _French_ "My my, aren't you feisty tonight? Did you truly wish for me to mount you so soon?" He chuckled because he ended up on top of me and I was wearing a dress that was really pulled up due to the fall. He took advantage of the situation by moving his knee up my dress a bit before I locked it in place with my own.

 _French_ "Only warning, get the hell off me before I get violent." I spoke slowly in between my grinding teeth's.

 _French_ "And what if I refused?" he sneered.

I did not even bother with an answer, my bangs turned white almost instantly and my knee shot up at almost the speed of sound, which is an exaggeration, and nailed him right in the family jewels. I know the pain but human trash like him does not deserve any sympathy. The impact was enhanced by both magical speed and strength amplifications thus resulting in him keeling over instantly and myself pushing him aside effortlessly. I got back up, brushed the dirt off my dress and walked away without a second look. I could not go back to the house without a yelling session for hurting him so I enjoyed a pleasant walk to cool myself down. I had hoped to have time to think of a solution more but it was changed to getting rid of my anger.

My options at this are to accept my fate and become a good business housewife but that would satisfy his desires and rob me of my life in a way much worse than the initial terrorist and fail the duty of prophet. My second option is to run away but the amount of money I can secure is limited along as careers, this country is not very liberal so I either become a noble housewife, nun or prostitute, wait we call them social workers now or was it escort? Regardless, those options are not very alive to me and would mostly fail the prophet duty. The third option would be to create a Mage job in the country somehow but that is very likely to end in a witch hunt to burn me at the stake.

I watched the birds sing around the flower garden as the sun became a darker shade of red, I could only keep thinking of my options, none are optimal, none are logical, all are difficult if not outright impossible for my goals. I think I should begin drafting what jobs a mage could do and see if I can get that started; you cannot marry off a woman you do not own because she has her own business right? Well that was my hope as I sneaked back into our home and made sure to not encounter Louis or my father as that would be terrible, I did hurt him in a sensitive area.

* * *

 **August 4th 1924**

The king has summoned all of the influential nobles to the court for an unknown reason, my father would have preferred to leave me behind due to my now very rebellious attitude towards him in public but everyone was required to attend and it goes without saying that the demon negotiator was a much sought guest. Although this assembly was very odd as we all mostly stood around in two neat sides of the throne room with the middle open. We were welcoming, I use that term lightly, Republican diplomats which had Benoit as an escort but not in the middle leading them. Based on their clothing I would say they are a very important delegation for the Republic but their purpose is unknown to me at present.

"Dear citizens of Dacia." The king beckoned to us all and we stood silently. "Today I have summoned all of you to announce we will be engaging in a mutually beneficial alliance with the Republic to put an end to the evil that is the Empire."

Wait… did I hear that properly? He wishes to put an end to the Empire by opening a third front? I mean there is already the Entente alliance and the Republic so going by that theory the Empire should already be falling into pieces as no country can maintain a two prong war unless if you had Carolus Rex or Sun Tzu as generals.

"We will put an end to their greed and recover the land that is ours by right!" This was met with roars of approval from the crowd. "We will rally the citizens, and march to reclaim our territory and then we shall keep marching and divide their land into three parts for our alliance to prevent the possibility of the Empire rising from its ashes." The crowd had lost it in cheering, roars and applause and it gave the Republican democrats a very satisfied look of relief.

"I object your Majesty!" I called out as I pushed myself out of the crowd and into the center carpet so he could see me.

"Naomi get back here and stay quiet." My father called out in a semi hushed voice but I ignored him.

"Who are you little lady to dare object to your King?" The man who seemed like a minister stepped out from beside the king to silence me.

"Naomi Desraft." I bowed as etiquette demands.

"The demon negotiator is stepping up to object to me, I am willing to listen." The king himself allowed me to speak and thus everyone got quiet. "I will admit that this is the first time we have met little child and I have heard great things from your business success but we are discussing war, can a factory merchant truly understand its concepts." He chuckled and so did the crowd, he was demeaning me before we even started.

"Your Majesty, you are ordering the country to levy an army to wage war and claim land from the Empire, is that correct?"

"Why yes, I believe that is what I said. Do you truly need me to spell things out? If so I recommend you return to your father as you would bring nothing intelligent." He waved me aside.

"Only establishing a common understanding my lord. This means that our army consists almost entirely of a draft in our citizens with a few artillery pieces we manufactured and maintained over the years, is this correct?"

"What about it?" He rested his head on his fist.

"Your Majesty, our army is untrained, contains no veterans and our weaponry is not exactly maintained as state of the art. The Empire has all these factors in their favour."

"That is why you know nothing of war, I announce it now such that we can prepare all of these things within a month before we depart." He was getting irritated visibly.

"Your Majesty, it is also to my understanding that the Empire possesses strong railroad to deploy troops and resources, they have forts along their borders riddled with artillery, they also have a state of the art aviation department that we cannot fight back. This is also before we consider their mages which are reputed as the cream of the crop."

"Are you suggesting we will lose?"

"Yes your Majesty, we simply do not possess the technology to fight them in an equal battle, even if we outnumber them we would only get slaughtered before we even took a step into their land."

"They are already stressed beyond their limits fighting a two front war, what could they possibly deploy to a third front?" A Republican politician loudly expressed himself which drew support to him and away from me. This is bad; everyone here does not seem to understand how war truly works. Actually… this could work in my favor…

"You see child, this is why I said you knew not of war. In normal times were it just us against the Empire you would be right that they would defeat us but when faced with three solid countries, they will fall." The King chuckled and this time waved me away for good but I did not leave.

"If I may ask one final thing." I bowed slightly; his head nod gave me permission to continue. "I wish to assist on the frontlines to learn more of war." This created a wave of shock among the crowd; a woman going to war was a ridiculous idea.

"You wish to become a soldier?" The question came from Benoit, I guess he is shocked since I am supposed to be a deal maker between companies.

"Not at all, I simply wish to be part of the commandment staff, I would not have responsibilities or authority but act as an observer to learn." This caused the king to burst in laughter.

"This girl is truly unique, first she demolishes the market in my country by negotiating beyond the norm and now she wishes to learn about war. Where have you been hiding this whole time? I would have married you off to one of my sons long ago had I known." He actually wore a smile.

"Your Majesty with all due respect she is already fiancée with a Republican company president son to create an international manufacturing enterprise." My father stepped in very quick.

"That is very unfortunate, to have to give away such a special girl to another country. I shall allow her request."

This concluded the assembly in a very positive manner for myself. We will lose the war; there is no doubt in my mind about that even if it is a third front against a war weary foe simply because of the technological advantage. I have played enough games who demonstrated that one modern elite troop is usually enough to take on almost a dozen more primitive troops. My plan is very simple, go to war, stay safe with the officials, when we are routed I am to disappear in the mess. It is not deserting if you are believed dead and thus no pursuit; this would solve my problem of marriage and little future in Dacia in a swift go. The only problem would be to find employment in the Empire or the Federation after, or actually try to get passage to the Unified States since I can speak their language fairly well and will not risk being damaged in the war. In the worst case scenario the war will last a quick month because we will endure the artillery and aviation bombardments and it will take more time to leave but it can work. I have to make it work. I can do the bonus of prophet to these soldiers since they are not professionals so they will need the protection of the lord even more.

 _*Later in the evening*_

 _ **CLAP**_

 _ **THUMP**_

I found myself on the floor with a bleeding nose the moment the front door of our house closed, I was already deep in thoughts so this brought me back to reality almost instantly. I got light headed from both the slap and the fall so I only took a peak to notice the red on my father's hand as he towered over me.

"You foolish daughter! How dare you speak like that to the king in front of all the nobles?! Do you have any idea of what will happen to our family now? You may have compromised your entire marriage and the future of our company with your carelessness!" he was yelling mind you that, I knew it would be stupid to get up so I stayed on the ground.

"I simply expressed the stupidity of the situation he is throwing us in."

"You think you would know more than a king in the matter of war?!"

"Honestly considering how he is throwing us into war against the Empire, I do believe so."

"ARROGANCE! I taught you no such thing! I will plead to the king for forgiveness so that you do not have to walk to the frontline and then you will get married to Louis. This is for the best."

"There shall be no such plea, I will go and observe the war on the frontline, just delay the marriage if you are so worried about it."

"It is the future of the whole family that I am worried about. I have made my decision and you will abide by them".

Well this made my evening a lot harder for no reason at all other than his anger. I slowly got up by holding myself up on the wall and furniture because my head was spinning. It goes without saying that due to my father's anger, not a single maid came to help me, and instead they looked the other way. I slowly made my way to my room to wipe off the blood that built on my face. I sat down at my workbench that only had a few tools such as an improvised screwdriver, scissor and blade for fine tweaking the hardware. There were a few papers with schemas and architecture but those were irrelevant now that I had completed my software component. I could only sigh since my father has now made this whole thing a lot more difficult, if his pleas goes through, and it probably will since he is a respected man compared to lady me, my plan will fall apart and I may have to actually run away and I will not have a free ride to the border this time.

It was just a few days later that I heard more about his pleas, it seems that I was approved to go to the frontline as my good fiancée decided to accompany me as form of both republican support and husband. I could not express my surprise at the news nor that the king had approved such a thing considering we would let an outsider join our army as logistical staff. I must say that although it was odd, this was my only chance and I shall be thankful just this one to his weird fetish. He loves seeing the strong side of my personality so he was probably more interested in seeing it on the field than back here where he is forced to entertain my father more than see my face.

* * *

 **August 18th 1924**

"The Carberius Company has invested a lot of capital into this factory in order to support your war efforts; we understand you had little time to remodel your assembly line to purely military functions. Thus I have brought from the Republic some resources to help you get straight to production along with the funds to operate around the clock without breaks." Benoit had a great time explaining everything they have been doing for us in this war.

"Following our much earlier agreement, and the union of our companies, we can name this remodelling of the building as the Carberius Arms Factory if you so wish." My father offered.

"That would be a fantastic thing to commemorate our joint efforts and the union of your daughter and our dear Louis."

"A toast then before we unveil the newer versions of the Dacian Artillery."

There was a lot of money invested and work around the clock to remodel our Capital factory into a pure military industry. We could probably output more guns and bullets than the rest of the country combined out of a single building. They have gifted us so many resources it could probably last longer than all the lives of our poor soldiers. This was just a political event to motivate our workers and bring faith to the other nobles that we can be useful in the war and not run out of weapons, thus allowing to draft more soldiers. From what I have managed to learn, we seem to have roughly a quarter of a million soldiers already that are now assembling in the fields outside the capital. We finally moved on to the star of the evening, where my father revealed our latest version of artillery, which I had not seem myself either, and I was sorely disappointed as he removed the cloth. This was a falconet. A simple yet efficient canon that shot in a straight line, very effective during line infantry era for armies such as Napoleon's but moving forward it was useless. This cannot be useful against trenches, let alone armored infantry or anything above ten meters in the air.

"Director, can this clock at an angle superior to forty five?" I asked, and mind you I had stopped calling him father after he hit me two weeks ago.

"That is a ridiculous question, no artillery need to go higher else you lose both in power and range." He seemed offended I could ask such a question.

No flak ammunition then, no high altitude strikes and most certainly no entrenchment siege got it. I sighed at this poor situation; I did not think we would fail at innovation at this stage of the game. That is when I felt a hand laid itself on my shoulder; I should note I am wearing my normal clothes at my own taste consisting of cargo pants and dress shirt with corset. I looked up to my left to see the disgusting face of Louis smiling at me.

"Now little miss, you seem to know more than your father about war but you do know the goal of Dacia is not to defeat the Imperial army head on."

"I am aware of our goal and purpose in this war, just increase war weariness and rush their peace treaty. Now please take your hand off my shoulder before I get violent."

"Is that any way to thank the man who has made your wish possible to go to war?" He chuckled.

"Of course it is, I am politely asking and giving a fair chance before I throw him out the window." I gave him my best innocent smile but honestly I was just boiling inside because if he changes his mind, I am not going to the frontlines. He seems to reluctantly concede and walks away from me. God I have problems tolerating his presence, not even what he says just his face makes me scowl.

Honestly I attended this evening celebration for a simple reason; my father has cut me out from all materials and thus could not actually prepare for the war I shall be assisting. Thus I came and while everyone is busy talking and overseeing the artillery I shall be busy arming myself. I cannot carry a rifle due to it being obvious but pistols have always had the same theory, small and easy to hide. Unfortunately the models in Dacia are all pretty terrible, it runs on bullet belts? I honestly have no idea of the term but the magazines are just bullets attached to a single metal rod and it loads from the top of the gun. I cannot say it felt reliable but a seven shot with an extra clip would be acceptable for self defense which I hurriedly requisitioned and hid away in my little carry bag. Good things inventory is not kept track of very well in this era for some reason, well I tried to get it done here but my father refused and I used to be mad but not anymore.

The next month passed very quickly as I had to help organize the flow of the factory to optimize production, even in anger the director knows I am the best at this. The time to march came before I realized it and thus the eightieth of September we began walking from the Capital towards the Empire. My father was so nice to me that I only brought a single suitcase of practical clothing and that was all, all the higher ups had their horses and here I was walking. Well to be fair it became my choice when my only option was Louis offering me to ride his horse with him. You would never catch me on the same horse as him voluntarily. The worst came later as we are all travelling at the walking speed of infantry, which we surprisingly numbered six hundred thousand which is a ridiculous amount which by itself would consist of the majority of casualties within a month time. As I was saying, the worst was setting up for the evening, as I was the only woman in this entire army, word spread pretty fast that I had a tent all to myself for privacy purposes.

It was nothing big, just enough for a makeshift bed consisting mostly of cots and a pillow so I still felt the grounds sturdiness. It did not bother me as much as some would think due to my past life experiences in the outside survival events. The problem arose when I heard the grass shuffling outside my tent with some whispering and chuckles. I quickly grabbed a combat knife I prepared ages ago and my rosary and quietly got up in a crouched position. I was already dressed in pants and a shirt because I anticipated this kind of situation to arise. It did not take long for the idiots to barge in the tent in what they probably thought passed as discrete.

"Oh look she is awake." Man one said.

"That saves us time, how about having some fun with us miss?" man two followed.

"We promise you will enjoy it." Man three finished. I was somewhat surprised they only smelled lightly of alcohol, I expected more for this level of stupidity but at the same time I expected none since this was a marching army. To hell with discipline I suppose, this was a peasant levy and unprofessional soldiers.

"This is your only warning, leave now and I will forget about this incident but try anything and your life is the least you will leave behind." I answered with a strong voice.

"Oh the wee lass think she can scare us."

"Seems she needs some convincing."

"Let's show her a good time then" At that queue they tried to reach me but in this small tent only one could be in front of me at a time. Without losing a beat I activated my magic to reduce reaction time by amplifying neural electrical systems, increased muscle strength by contracting my muscles by simulating electrical input. I also gave myself some night vision by changing the light spectrum in my eyes and enchanted my blade. Studying all three main sciences has finally paid off, thank you high school bullshit curriculum and extra credits in university. I stabbed the forearm of the first man with the knife before forcibly twisting it with my left thus cracking and separating both bones in that part of the body, within the same breath I pulled out the knife and shot it straight back up into his throat. I thus kicked the dying man to his comrades and they fell back half a meter in shock, considering the lighting I may be the only one to have truly seen what happened. I coldly looked at the leftover.

"Her eyes…"

"Cat eyes, is she a demon?"

"Just a woman protecting herself from idiots." I coldly answered as I continued my acts of 'self-defence'. The second man was holding the first not realizing he was already dying from loss of blood and with his arms locked I managed to slit his throat in an instant but that is where trouble arose. The third man had lifted more of the entrance of the tent and let in some light thus he could see the three of us covered in blood and my transformed purple eyes. He screamed in fear as he started to run, I could only click my tongue and let him go, there is no way I could catch up to him and with all the noise he is making he is probably going to have someone watching him thus finishing him in his run would lead to more trouble. Well at the very least his intake of alcohol will give me some benefit of the doubt; the best part is how I planned this to begin with. I quickly cleaned as much of the blood as possible through magic and using the dead's clothes, picked up my suitcase and moved a few tents down to an empty one, my real tent. I had borrowed one of those who were part of the first shift of the night watch to fool some people into attacking me, or assaulting I guess. No one would believe a frail little girl killed two man right? Especially if it was not even at my own tent.

It did not take long for the guards to come running along with a few of the highest ranked officers, I was acting asleep but they were making a lot of noise and barking orders. Within a few moments what I assumed to be a military police officer, or its Dacian equivalent, barged in to drag me out. I had hidden my abilities as a mage so far and my knife was in my case and not on me and no reasonable gentlemen would look through a woman's luggage.

"You DEMON!" the third assaulted yelled at me on sight.

"What is this about?" I asked in a faked sleepy tone.

"This man here claims you killed two in that tent, and that you had cat eyes worthy of a demon."

"That sounds ridiculous but you may verify if you wish." I spoke as I raised my bangs for everyone to see my regular eyes. I did not have it tied up because it is night time and any girls who have slept with their hair done will tell you the horror those mornings are if left as such overnight.

"Your eyes are quite normal to me. Alright lock this man away."

"But sir, I saw it with my own eyes."

"You also reek of booze while you are trying to convince me this little girl slayed two adult men, off with you!" This is how I got away with murder, well to be fair I cared very little about random people who tried to rape at the first occasion. Well I guess I cared enough since I saw it coming a month away and prepared myself mentally for it. The less I think of it now the better. I was let off from the officers and was even assigned a guard because he doubted I would be left alone by the mates of this man.

I believed that was the end of it but it hit me harder once I walked into my tent, I immediately convulsed and emptied my stomach of content. The acid was strong enough to leave a burning sensation the whole way and I coughed the rest which only served to burn me even more. Holy shit is this was killing someone does to you? This is not normal right? They were just two scums of the earth, just humans led by their greed and desires, I only defended myself, I have done nothing wrong. Shit I am starting to have chest pains now to boot and I am already on all four. Shit why my body not responds to reason, there is no reason to mourn them, if anything the world is better now. I spent the whole night without sleep, it was simply impossible for me with both my chest pains and the acid that went up my throat. Note to self, do not kill, even if it is more efficient by all logical standards, just don't do it.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

Hello Everyone, GenShadow here again,

First of all I must apologies greatly for taking so long… again… serious issues in self confidence in writing, serious issues in seeing too many branches in the story tree… also a serious issue to have chapter 5 & 6 figured out before 3 & 4… but let's not talk about that.

Hope you are all enjoying how Naomi is making her way into this war, the waiting is over, Dacia arc is done for and now we get into the real fun with the characters we all know and love from Youjo Senki.

Also it is a battlefield myth that your first kill will bring terrible sensations, it is even worse if you do it close enough with a knife. Remember that the number 1 thing to NEVER ask anyone in military affairs is if they have ever killed someone.

Until next time!


	4. Chapter 4: Deserter for Hire

_September 24th, 1924_

"You look terrible dear."

"Go fuck yourself kindly where I cannot see you." I groaned back.

"Will you truly keep going like this until the end of the war? You must have known it was no easy feat."

"Yeah I knew but I simply underestimated my father's anger."

"My horse simply awaits your request." he smirked.

"And he shall be left waiting. Hmpf!" I shook my head in the inverse direction from his.

It has been a week since the event where I claimed two lives, heathen or not I have no idea but God can do his job and recognize his own. I have been unable to catch even the smallest wink of sleep since and thus barely have the energy to even keep walking forward with this march. The lack of sleep has started to show itself on my physical appearance, my hair is unkempt, my clothes are loosely slapped on and I just pack my baggage and drag on the advance. I was tired and feared that when the moment came that we got routed I would not have the energy to break free and desert. Truly would be a worse case scenario to be grabbed on by a horsemen and fled back to the Capital and lack the energy to break free alongside whatever would happen on the trip back. Ugh my feet are killing me, even the carts were faster than me, that's how much I slowed down. With a sigh I approached one of the head quarter cart and jumped on the front seat with the driver.

"What are you doing young lady?" he asked in surprise.

"Just taking a seat, is it not allowed?" I tried to put on my cutest questioning face, he got a bit red which means success.

"It is not that it isn't allowed, more like I have no idea if a lady should ride on such a rough cart."

"We are going at war, should I really ask for a carriage?"

"Well some nobles actually do so milady."

"I am of low noble birth, I do not have the option to do so and even if I could, I assure you I would not. I mean, a carriage only tells the enemy where to shoot." I chuckled hoping to break the barrier.

"I suppose you are right, welcome aboard milady, I am known as Hector." he chuckled along, seems he is more comfortable knowing I am not a high noble or anything dangerous to him.

"I am Naomi, a pleasure to meet you Hector." I bowed my head slightly in good manners.

"What brings a young lady such as yourself to our front-lines?"

"If I were to be honest, it is God himself that has sent me here." not exactly true but not quite wrong either.

"God is not as cruel as to send a such a frail lady to war."

"Have you heard of Joan of Arc?"

"Ay, that I have, but those were much crueller times which required an equivalently cruel answer. We are doing what is right today which does not require another young lady to die for this cause."

"You are a good man Hector but I assure you I am not here to hold weapons. The times have changed and I am here as strategic presence only."

"That is good to hear milady Naomi, it would be a shame to lose a beautiful young lass."

"I am sure you mean well but I am in no state to take compliments."

"Ah but milady Naomi, very few can appear beautiful through your state yet here you are shining through."

"Thank you Hector."

God... why have you made this so awkward?! I am trying my best to change my swearing by using your name in vain but this... is just your fault. I now live as a woman and hearing compliments is great but I know exactly what he is doing which is both an advantage and a weird thing to understand. truly the life as a man is easy and simple for interpersonal relations. We spent easily half the day chatting away, I learned that he was actually a family man, forgive me for misunderstanding his intentions, with two daughters that mean the world to him. He comes from the Northern part of the country in the fiefs owned by Luke's family and he prays everyday to return to his fields and wife. I did not share much but played the shut in daughter of a noble role who read about war and thus was sent here with my fiance. This new friendship allowed me to pack by baggage in the cart and secure an easy means of transportation going forward. This is helpful to me beyond beliefs as the sole in my boots were getting thinner by the day, they do not make them like they used to... I mean like in the future... this will be something to catch next time if it is not a thought. I tried to settle for a quick nap come mid day.

"Miss Desraft?" I woke up to an annoying voice calling me.

"What do you want?" I asked coarsely.

"We are now within the lands controlled by the Empire, is this not what you wished to see?" Louis briefed me on the situation.

"Nope, my task comes when the lines are drawn, trenches are dug and artillery sets up for bombardment, as long as we march onward I have nothing to do." I denied him.

"So be it, I shall return for you later then my dear." he smirked as he reared away and I happily watched him leave before turning and noticing that Hector had a very skeptical look to him as well.

"Who was he?" He asked.

"My dear fiance that is by far the most annoying existence known to men."

"He did have a certain air about him, a noble for sure but not from our dear Dacia."

"You are sharp, he is from the oh so great Francois Republic, I have been sold."

"Truly a shame." he shook his head sideways in disappointment.

"Tell me Hector, what do you think will happen now that we have crossed the border? The war has officially started and there is no going back." I asked what I was pondering while looking into the bright blue skies.

"We will take a few forts and cities over the course of a few months before the Empire crumbles and that will be all."

"It is impossible for it to be so easy."

"Milady Naomi, you do not have the experience we have in life, a war on three front is impossible even if the enemy is the Empire."

I could only ponder more on this, if we speak geopolitics, this Empire is awfully similar to Germany and that country effectively took on the world, twice at that, nearly winning once. If we compared this in a game of statistics, the Empire has higher industrial output, is more on the cutting edge of technology than us and must have its fair share of geniuses or seasoned veterans. Were it just them against us, they would win eleven times out of ten, yet on three front with supposedly two equal contestants and us with only number advantage, I lack the knowledge and experience to tell. Now that I think about it, this is the nineteen twenties, they must have an air force, isn't that the worse nightmare for infantries? I had to cut my thought short as Hector directed the cart differently. We started forming a square with the carts and the inner ones started assembling a tent with equipment.

"What is going on?" I asked.

"Contact with the enemy milady Naomi, the head quarters will be built and the lines drawn for combat."

"I cannot hear anything though, are we truly attacking anything?"

"No milady, this is usually what happens when the enemy is spotted."

"ALL HANDS TO BATTLE POSTS, THE VANGUARD IS UNDER ATTACK! ONWARDS FOR DACIA!" The General yelled, well this vanguard is very far from us eh. I took this chance to holster my emergency pistol under my shirt and inside my belt while Hector was distracted. I hopped down the cart to stretch my legs and get a look at how they screw this one up. Looking towards where our vanguard should be, I saw nothing but clear skies and trees, noted we were not on a hill but still, no viewpoint, no map, no sound. I walked to the strategic HQ to see the map if they had one of this region. I barely reached that I was dragged out the meeting by my lovely fiance.

"What do you think you are doing." he whispered strongly.

"Getting a good look to take educated guesses and give propositions."

"Your role is to observe so stick to it and stay out of their way." I only scoffed and pulled my arm free as he gave me a glare. He may be a pervert but on a battlefield he is serious and I shall respect it just this time since lives are at stake.

Time went on slowly as multiple incoherent reports came in and our cadre answered in kind. All I could make out were reports of enemy spotted, front line broken, multiple officers falling and just general disarray inside the vanguard. We were outputting an incredible amount of communication in our ancient radio system, well relatively to me, this was ancient.

*crackle* "Enemy in the skies" *crackle* "Officer down" *crackle* "Can't kill them" *crackle*

Well this was good news, our vanguard of roughly sixty thousand were dying in droves and unable to give us any valuable information. Well to our cadre this was not valuable but to me this was interesting, enemies in the skies means airplanes, most likely bombers since they can wipe out armies with a single carpet bomb run. I lean back on a cart as I awaited the decisions, I was asked to observe only so I will not give propositions even though I know how to deal with this. During the first Great War, also known as World War One, the bombers relied heavily on either time, coordinates or vision to drop their payload. I doubt the enemy has precise coordinates of our location, timing assumes our marching speed which is a variable since this is an advancing army thus they must use vision which can be denied if we split up and moves between the trees and hills. The splitting up is very important since if they do find a fraction of us, a single carpet run will not cripple us. Seriously though this should be common sense for war so why is our great General always spouting shit like regroup and march after shooting to death the enemies in front.

I could only sigh because at this rate we will be routed and I would not have had a chance to disappear, nighttime escape it is then. I looked into the blue skies while basking in the warm sun. I noticed some birds coming from where our vanguard is located, I guess the fighting scared them. Based on my theory I should be afraid of bird shape objects from that direction but they were too small and flying too low to actually be bombers so I consider this a safe guess. They were flying a bit weird though, stopping mid air or at least straight towards me which gave the impression of stopping. It did not take long for me to notice I was wrong, very, very wrong. They approached very fast and as they got closer their shape got a lot more defined, these were not birds, they were humans.

"Louis?"

"What is it dear?" he smirked at me calling him.

"What kind of people can fly?"

"Mages naturally, why?"

"We got a lot of those right on top of us."

He panicked immediately as he looked up and that is when my whole vision became clouded by literally everything being broken and exploding. I could not tell you for how long I was in the air but it felt like a half eternity, falling on my left shoulder felt like it dislocated or equivalent pain as I kept rolling by the sheer force of the explosion. When I came to a stop I simply could not move, all I could do was groan in the intense pain I was in, left arm was weak, vision was blurry and my head was spinning. I wish I could orient myself but my hearing was whistling, the explosion must have been right next to me for these results. Man I haven't been this way since I got shell shocked that one time in my past life I did a military simulation to recreate the Normandy Invasion.

When I finally came back to my senses, and by that I mean head stopped spinning and the whistling stopped, I looked around to assess the situation. Half our carts were dismantled in countless pieces, some were burning but there was many craters around as if a bombardment happened with small explosives. I got up on my elbows to look up and that is when I saw it, countless bodies of our cadre and logistic staff laid dead around what used to be the forward command centre. I had to hold back the urge to regurgitate, the smell had not set in but from the looks of it, most of them did not die from the bombardment but from something else after. That is when I noticed standing men in green trench coats, those must be the Imperial Mages that attacked us. I stayed low as I scurried to the nearest cart, my left arm killed me on the way but I should ignore it, voicing my pain right now would be dangerous. Shit what is this situation, how the hell do mages fly and create explosions, as far as I knew we could only make logical things happen not straight up fantasy magic. I pulled out my pistol for the little bit of comfort it would bring. I peeked from under the cart and them being as busy as bees going around claiming their spoils, I noticed our lovely general being tied up at one end. They were in high spirits as they claimed all of our communication paperwork, maps and whatever else we brought except for the radios, theirs must be much better.

 _German_ "Yes Major! Are we conducting a sweep-up operation?" A tall man without a helmet asked. On a side note, what kind of idiot goes to war without head protection, on another note, thank the Heavens I am sideways to them else I would have been spotted by now.

 _German_ "Has our air fleet been dispatched?" An officer most likely asked but I could not see them, funny because I hear a female voice, as coarse as it may be, was an officer in this time and age.

 _German_ "Yes! it won't take long"

Well this situation just got better, a full on air fleet will appear to wipe the rest of us out and all we have left is no one actually. The entire Dacian army will be routed by a fleet of bombers and that is after the fact that our chain of command and vanguard were dismantled by... 1, 2, 3... fuck it, a lot of Imperial mages, easily 60 of them I would guess from under my cart. I noticed a rifle with a bayonet that was halfway under the cart, with this if I managed to spread the air pressure I could artificially suppress the sound and wreck some havoc. among the mages. Damn have to reach out while leaning on my left arm, I grabbed the barrel and slowly pulled on it. It wasn't stuck per say but my poor physique in this life is considerably weaker than the one I had in the twenty first century, gender playing the biggest part.

 _German_ "Did that rifle just move?" I heard one of them say.

 _German_ "Probably just the dirt shifting around the craters."

 _German_ "But there are no holes around there."

 _German_ "You are right, a survivor maybe?"

Shit my time is short, I yanked it out and without even verifying if it was loading, I hoisted the gun to my right shoulder as my left arm screamed in pain. I leaned to the right for an angle on the soldier without helmet and pulled the trigger. The shot rang very loudly in my eardrum, I mean I never shot a gun in this life especially this close to my face and my rookie mistake was placing my cheek too close to the bullet release which gave me a slight burning sensation and some eye irritation. I still checked on my target since I know the bullet would definitely hit someone, maybe not my target but it was low enough to be a chest shot on someone before him. To my biggest surprise, a green force field appeared in front of his head and block the bullet.

 _English_ "NOW THAT IS BULLSHIT!"

I instinctively shot up and yelled at him, seriously bullet proof magical shields, next thing you know there are Dragons and fairies and shit. Well I fucked up, now I have the attention of every single one of them and some started raising their guns towards me. Shit I darted towards the forest trees behind me, it was only a hundred or so meters, roughly twelve seconds of sprint I suppose, the problem is making it since it takes a third of that time to take the proper shot. Halfway there and I still did not hear any shots, just when I started hoping I felt something feeling me up in a very creepy way, it wasn't a physical touch but more like a cold air running around and wrapping me, tying me to something. Oh crap, were they using magic as aim bot? I instantly dived into a roll to my right and it was the correct call as my previous position got plastered in what looked to be laser beams. Have to ignore the pain of my left arm that got banged again in that maneuver. My problem now was hiding in the woods, it slowed me down considerably and they could still see me, the worse being that I do not know the limits of that aiming magic, will hiding even help or can they track? I tried to climb over a fallen tree to disappear beyond and that is when I felt a very sharp pain in my sides, I managed not to climb but roll over to the other side of the trunk but fell flat on my back in pain. Fuck me! This burns what the hell, I was keeling on myself over that pain. I barely managed to see the wound, it was flowing with blood! Fuck I got shoot real good, it's not fatal as far as I knew but bloody hell it hurts and I can bleed out from this.

I groan as I tried to get back up to run, I have no idea if they will come after me some more but I have to create more distance between us. Thus I stumbled through the woods, rifle in right hand, left hand clutched on the wound, hunchback I slowly made my way through the trees. I have lost perception of time, probably distance too but it has been long enough that it is safe to say that they were not pursuing me, probably bigger fishes to fry at this point but I still have this gaping hole in me. I managed to find a river, guess God is on my side this time and man do I hope he was since that was too close for comfort as escape from Dacia. I chuckled to myself, plan is a success but mighty painful this one. I let myself drop, I did not have the energy to stand anymore nor gracefully sit down. I yanked out the bayonet from the rifle, this was the worse part, considering I have been bleeding in the woods for an unknown period of time with an open wound, it had to be sanitized and closed. I have no extra cloth and no alcohol so this was going to hurt, I plunged the blade under water and poured some mana to vibrate it excessively as well as circulate the mana inside for some sweet induction heating. Once the water was letting out a lot of bubbles to demonstrate evaporation I took the blade out and with mighty swears, multiple deep breaths, I plunged its tip inside the wound and around.

 _This paragraph has been censored for extremely graphic and coarse language_

* * *

"Commander are you sure about letting her get away?"

"Lieutenant Serebryakov, we have much more important things to do than to chase a single enemy. We have captured their general."

"If you say so ma'am, but she shot at lieutenant Weiss."

"He looks just fine to me."

"Yes ma'am I am fine but it was surprising to see that Dacia had female officers as well."

It is just as Weiss said, it was believed that only the Empire would use female soldiers since it ran on a meritocratic system which is why the Major and I are here. For Dacia, a monarchy who runs on a caste system to actually have female officers is very impressive, she must be very gifted.

* * *

I woke up around evening, damn must have fainted from the pain, the bloody bayonet was on my left rather than with my hand on the right which means I passed out halfway through. I quickly checked the wound and it was nasty, I mean it was seared black, a permanent scar of war now. _Tch_! Nothing can be done now unless if the Empire has some fantasy healing potions. I got back up, my left arm felt better but still a bit strung in pain but a lot more bearable now, I picked up the pistol but left the bayonet and rifle there. Now the sun rises to the east? Or was it the west? Note to self, actually attend boy scouts next life because in this era, I CAN'T GOOGLE THIS SHIT! Fuck it let's walk towards where the sun is setting since this morning it was to our back so in theory, the Empire is towards the setting sun.

I walked on for most the evening, surprisingly uneventful, I got lucky really, praise be the lord. I eventually came to some fortifications, I am assuming Imperial since this was brick and cement which shows some sign of industrialization. On top of a hill too, if I wasn't in shape by now, well after this trip is done I will be. to my biggest surprise, this base was abandoned, not a single guard around, no lights either. I do not have my knife but I pulled out the pistol, better safe than dead right now as I crept through the front door. Absolutely empty courtyard which made it the most suspicious. I stuck to the walls and made my way to the first building, creeping through a window I could see it was the mess hall but again it was empty. My stomach did start to grumble so against my better judgement I snuck in and went to the end which I assumed was the kitchen. A quick scan gave nothing since it was so dark, I activated my magic to enhance light reception in my eyes and give me cat like night vision. There was no one as I suspected but not much food itself. I am no grand chef but I can use the basics if only there were a bit of things left yet all I could find was a bag of dried cookies forgotten in a corner... it's nothing extravagant but it should stave off the hunger for now.

I finished my 'meal' fast enough before proceeding deeper inside, within a half hour I had confirmed this was completely empty except for myself since both the offices, command centre and sleeping area had no one. There were no documents which meant this was intentional to abandon but the beds being made and some uniforms not unlike those I saw before meant they had occupation recently. I was in a pretty sad state so against my better judgement I assembled some of their uniform clothing and tried out their baths, their plumbing still worked to my greatest delight. I found some soap as well which is one of the biggest blessing after a week of march, whoever classified them as non necessary to bring when abandoning, may the Lord bless you. After an easy hour of relaxing I got dressed in their uniform, it was a much better fit than I expected, seems I hit a lucky guess in sizes since this one looked to be for females. The material they used is also incredibly better than the common cloth in Dacia, it is not even on the same scale. Hmm actually I should take some of the spare cloth here and make some undergarments, this era does have underwear in the form of shorts but nothing for the women upper body, well they have muscle shirts or what is better know as the wife-beater shirt. I was lucky to find some scissors in a desk close to the uniform depot and I worked away to form something reasonable, I paid a surprising amount of attention for embroidery classes and sewing clothes was close to the same principle so I formed the general shape, added some extra padding for under, some shoulder straps and then used buttons on the back. Rudimentary by all means but it removes a lot of weight and variables in high stress situations for sure. I called it a night in one of the officer's room, a girl deserves some privacy right?

* * *

 _September 25 1924_

I woke up to the sound of engines, shit I rushed out and put on the rest of the uniform and put on a trench coat to hide the rank bars I may or may not have. I know the Canadian rank system but I have no idea how it translates to this era and I would be better not to take chances. Looking out the window carefully I could see the garrison of this fort streaming back inside the fort. This is going to be difficult, impersonating military personnel is a grave offence in more countries than it isn't and changing back to my rags would be bad as well since no Imperial settlement were damaged and thus I cannot be a refugee. Shit well I can't ponder forever, I grabbed the rifle I found last night in a desk, they had emergency backups I suppose of these but it only has two magazines filled with ammo which meant roughly two dozen shots. Yes I actually emptied both, counted and reloaded them. Strapped to my shoulder I walked out as if I were a soldier and started doing a 'patrol' around the place. I was trying to find a backdoor exit while being inconspicuous it is just when I reached the said door, some soldiers were coming in.

 _German_ "Mind holding the doors please." One of them carrying a big box asked me.

 _German_ "Of course" I answered.

 _German_ "Thanks"

This lead to a stream of them carrying things inside as I stood there with the door open, it was a bit weird but no one thought of me as odd.

 _German_ "Would you like me to help with the boxes?" I asked after a bit.

 _German_ "How could us man allow that to happen, just holding the door is enough miss." he smirked while the rest nodded in agreement. I won't complain but this is just weird for me. The worse is because my imperial dialect is not that solid yet, I can by for the average conversation but some words will draw blanks from me especially the military specifics. As soon as they were done with the boxes I slipped away outside, need to get out before I am stuck on a door again. My biggest problem is how there is but a single gate to the fort, great design but terrible for one stuck on the inside wanting out. I could try for a classic with rope on the wall and skip on down but I do not have such resources on hand. I was now next to the mess hall from where I could see the courtyard activity and the influx of soldiers and resources coming in. This is as busy as a beehive, I won't make it out easily. I am actually out of ideas so I will bet everything on this, I started walking towards the front door. I am in uniform so hopefully no one catches on to me.

Contrary to all expectations, I managed to walk right through the front door, not a single person gave me an odd look or anything. Of course I cannot just bolt away at this point since that would be the most suspicious behaviour by far so I just walked down the row of trucks to act as a sort of inspector. I did not actually check any trucks but as I went by some of the transports there were some guys who tried to talk to me but I simply gave simple answers and kept going on. The more I talk, the bigger the risk so I kept things to the point, eventually I came to the last one which wasn't that far away to begin with and of course they wanted to talk as well.

 _German_ "Hi miss, how can we help you today?" The passenger asked.

 _German_ "You only need to tell me if everything is alright on your end." I answered neutrally.

 _German_ "Better than alright, it is fantastic since yesterday." He had a big smile and made the driver chuckle.

 _German_ "It is just the start, no need to get so excited." I say that yet truth be told I have no idea what he was on about.

 _German_ "Miss you are with us, you must know how we routed the Dacian army with just a mage wing. They are the heroes of the Empire as we speak."

 _German_ "I was aware of that but not the wing in question, could you tell me more about them?"

 _German_ "Sorry miss, we don't know much ourselves other than they are a new wing of elites from Central HQ. Although I have heard that they did not report last night because they were actually infiltrating the enemy capital and blew up their weapon factory"

Well that is no good, Dacia lost to an elite group, they can do fantasy magic and I am no closer to understanding any of this. Well it doesn't matter much since I should keep going inland now to make a living. Wait did he say they destroyed a weapon factory? In the Capital? There is only one of those that was in use around the clock that could be targeted at night.

 _German_ "Are you not a mage yourself miss?"

 _German_ "Hm? Ah yes I am but nowhere close to them, thank you for your company but I need to verify a few things now." I excused myself quickly before they kept asking questions. I acted as if I saw something and started heading towards the edge of the fortifications to slip away. I somehow made and was now out of sight of the resource line and soldiers. I gave myself a quick sigh of relief before coming face to face with an actual patrol, I stepped to the side to let them pass which I can only hope they shall. The first of the two stopped in front of me.

 _German_ "Good day miss, I do not believe we are acquainted." He smiled as he tipped his hat up.

 _German_ "If you do not mind, I would like to keep it that way, I am shy."

 _German_ "Would you care to identify yourself and your goal being outside the base?"

This is exactly what I wanted to avoid, forgive me but I need to go, on that I quickly gave a quick punch to his gut. This knocked the breath out of him although it got the other one yelling in surprise, on a twist of my feet I grabbed my rifle as a bat and knocked him aside with the stock. I don't think I hit his temple so he should just be unconscious but still I am no expert. I finished it by smacking the rifle down on the first guy as he was getting up from the punch. The yelling has quite probably alerted the whole base of my presence so I quickly swapped the now broken rifle with one of theirs and ran into the wood towards the sun. I do not have the time to stay nor orient myself nor loot for more ammo and rations. I simply kept running for the second time now. After an hour of making way in the woods I stopped to check my position, the sun was at an eleven o'clock position and to make progress west I should go opposite to it. I unfortunately made a wrong decision, seems I overslept and it was actually the afternoon thus I have been walking towards Dacia for the past couple of hours without noticing. I realized it only after I arrived to where our vanguard once stood, the ground now littered in corpses, broken wood shrapnel, craters and whatever else that is unidentifiable. For a second day now, I puked my guts even if all they had were dried cookies. The smell was atrocious.

I made my way back to the trees to sit down for a moment, I need to make a decision now that I have some time and am at a crossroad. I can continue to desert and make a living elsewhere like originally planned but I should quite probably go back to the Dacian Capital to verify what went on. It is a commandment to respect ones parents so at the very least verifying their well being should be done. This will probably set me back in making a living for myself elsewhere but I cannot just abandon them, even if I lost the respect for my biological father, he still raised me in this life. I hate my conscience sometimes, hate leaving my habits and the lands I know which is forcing me to go back. I resumed my march and this time intentionally towards Dacia, it did not take that long for me to reach the remains of the head quarter and to my surprise it had some activity. It was filled with Dacian soldiers collecting the bodies of the fallen and recovering the equipment the Imperial did not deem important. I walked out after verifying that the trench coat did not have any armoury since that would be a problem. I was spotted almost immediately but to my surprise the one to come forward to intercept was actually Louis.

"Where have you been?" He asked in a distressed voice.

"Here and there." that earned me a backhanded slap to my cheek, which actually surprised me.

"I asked you a question woman, answer properly."

"If I must, I infiltrated a nearby Imperial fortification, acquired information and stole technology, any more question oh great Republican?"

"And how did you get information? Did you do like all women and spread your legs until they spoke?" Now it was my turn to slap him.

"Don't you dare question my honour you bastard, you all have been moping around for the last twenty four hours while I have been getting things done!" We both glared at each other.

"Do you know her sir?" A soldier walked up and asked, I could see a few more actually aiming their rifles at me, I don't blame them considering what I was wearing.

"This bitch is a logistic officer, she was with the officers, she is Dacian." Louis finally coughed out.

"A woman? I heard the rumours but did not believe them."

"Yeah, got a problem with that?" I asked him as I scoffed.

"Hold your tongue and I won't." He frowned.

"I guess none of you wishes to know what I learned then? That is fine by me."

"Just spit it out then, stop wasting our time." The Dacian officer truly disliked me it seems.

"Ask nicely and maybe I will share." I smirked at him, no way would I obey to such an attitude. Immediately it caused an uproar around as all of these men were against having a woman around at war to begin with, and more than anything else they hate being shown up by one. God, next time I see you, you will have to present in a clear, concise manner why being a female prophet was better than a man and it better not be because they didn't crucify a woman yet, they burn them instead.

"Alright woman but be warned, it better not waste my time, what have you learned?" He pointed as he warned me.

"I haven't heard the word please, did your mother raise you with proper manners?" I leaned in while cupping my ear. I heard him growl audibly.

"Please woman, share what you learned." He actually swallowed his pride, I will stop pushing it then.

"Since you asked so nicely, the Empire is actually preparing to counter attack, I do not think they will commit a lot of soldiers since they sent an elite team of mages against us yesterday and won with barely sixty of them. They also used bombers to wipe out the vanguard, we have no means to fight them so they can rout us at any time they wish with minimal risk, casualties and cost of resources to them."

"You got more information on those mages?" Louis asked.

"None, even the Imperial soldiers knew little other than they were a newly formed elite wing. It is actually possible we revealed the Empire trump card by launching a surprise attack which forced their resources extremely thin."

"I will not believe a mere sixty soldiers routed almost sixty thousand that acted as vanguard while pinpointing and killing our head quarters." The officer denied.

"I don't blame you but I saw what they did, they could create explosions from their guns, light beams and a shield to block bullets. I have no idea how anything we have could deal with them." I dodged the term laser since no one would understand it here.

"Yes that is actually standard for the modern power mages, and the Imperial Mages are known as the best of the best in the world. To think they actually had sixty to spare to this front so soon." Louis was lost in thought.

"Another thing, the wing only returned to the Empire this morning, it seems they launched a night raid on the Capital and blew up a weapon factory."

"That is ridiculous to traverse our country in a mere night!"

"Yet that is what the Imperial soldiers were celebrating this morning, on that note I will need a horse, I need to return to the Capital."

"I understand, I will accompany you." Louis waved and some soldiers went to fetch his horse and an extra that survived the mages. "In these situations, reporting what you saw to the king takes precedence, I assume the officers here can regroup properly and continue the advance once we have new orders."

I may not like the guy but he was strangely efficient at leading people, the Dacian officers and soldiers followed his words without hesitation. Good thing my father actually allowed me to learn how to handle a horse the same as a man which allowed me to just hop on and start galloping towards the Capital with Louis in tow.

* * *

 _September 28 1924_

It was a quiet trip of two days since talking while on a horse is perfect to bite your tongue and die a horrible death of bleeding out. When we arrived to the Capital he wanted to reach the king immediately but I made a detour, I had to know. I was both surprised and not at what laid before me. I got off the horse to walk among the ruins of what was once our proud family factory. Everything was in pieces, the equipment buried, the brick was charred in many areas from fire or maybe an explosion, from how the brick was spread out it looked to have blown up from inside. How did they specifically target this factory and how did they achieve it without being spotted inside the Capital? I saw in the distance some odd workers still rummaging the rubble, I thought they were just trying to clean up until I saw them pull out the body of a dead factory worker. I ran up to them immediately.

"Excuse me, what happened here?"

"Who are you miss? Don't you know this area is off-limit?" The workers immediately shut me down.

"I am Naomi Desraft, daughter of the owner of this factory, will you answer my question?" All the workers suddenly stopped working as they heard me and a lot lowered their heads.

"Young lady, please forgive me but we know very little, we worked at the factory but since it blew up we were tasked by the king to salvage what we could from here."

"The king told you to do this? Where is my father?"

"Young lady, I think you should go home." He insisted. Are you kidding me? Are we actually playing this cliche scenario God? Fine I will be your weak little traumatized character for now, good thing I was not as attached as I should be else I could be crying right now.

"Dear..." Louis was behind me and was handing me a handkerchief.

"What is that for?" I asked in surprise.

"For when the time comes."

Tch! I am fine, I brushed him away as I hurried back to my horse and made my way to our small manor inside the Capital. I took a quick glance to notice that Louis did not follow me which gave a slight sense of joy since it meant peace of mind. On my way home though, I noticed that the townsmen morale was very low, no one was as hopeful as when we departed or even before that during times of peace. They were simply scared and seemed almost dead inside. As I got to the manor I did as before and just unmounted immediately to walk in, almost running into a maid.

"Oh! Miss Naomi you have returned?!" she almost yelled.

"Yeah, where is my father?" I asked.

"You should go his studies miss." She bowed slightly.

I lost no time to climb the stairs and did not even knock, I simply waltzed in into an empty room. It was in the afternoon but very little windows thus usually a candle would be lit in the room yet it was dark. It took a while to get used to the darkness, just enough to find what I needed to light a candle on his desk.

"Who is there?" a weak voice asked, I jumped since I believed to be alone yet as I turned I noticed the form of a human that was sitting in a couch on the side of the room.

"Mother is that you?"

"Naomi? You came back!" Her weak voice regained some strength as she jumped up to embrace me, tears in her eyes. I did not fight her off, the shock must be great on her, thus I returned the embrace. "Have you heard?" she asked me after a while.

"No, but everyone's action reveals what happened, I simply do not understand how he got caught up in the night."

"Let's sit down." We did so on opposing couches. "A few days ago, about a week after you departed, during the night the radio broadcast a weird message. It was the voice of a child, a sweet little girl telling us the Imperial Army would lay siege to our factory, no one believed it, it simply had to be a joke. I mean, why would the professional Imperial Army disgrace themselves by dragging a child to war, well everyone except your father thought it was a prank. He rushed out saying he had to evacuate the factory. We all tried to stop him, saying it was foolish to trust into a child's prank but he told us no child would ever prank about the Imperial Army being at our doorstep. As per the message, exactly half an hour later, the factory came under attack and exploded, with your father still inside. They pulled out his corpse only yesterday, I couldn't bear to see it myself."

I could only stay quiet as she told me what went on, even as she broke into tears I sat there quietly, my face held by both my hands which held on my knees and those held on the floor else I might have collapsed myself. The Imperial Army actually used a child? Ridiculous! No post industrialization country would do such a thing, too much equipment to carry, too much morality involved, the country would collapse on itself based on the shame of having to send its children into hell on earth. If it is anything like what I have seen so far from the mages, they obey the laws of War but changing your voice by magic is not regulated by those laws. Damn I am actually pretty behind in magic, I may have to cheat with my modern knowledge of science to compensate for their fantasy.

"Naomi, how can you stay so calm?" my mother suddenly asked when she got a break in her tears.

"I learned of the factory coming under attack a few days ago, the morning after it happened to be precise, I had already guessed the possibility." I sighed.

"Truly, how can you be our child, you are simply too different, no tears for your loving father." She was starting to yell.

"Mother, crying won't help us, not to mention he tried to sell me off to a foreign country, I simply had no respect for that man anymore."

"You ungrateful girl, just leave me be." She broke into more tears, can't say I played that well but there is a lot of work to do.

I returned to my room and workshop, honestly speaking if the Empire could spare the resources to break the third front that means the other two are not pressuring them enough. This means they could quite probably be like Germany from the Second World War, they have the National Power to win against multiple opponents. The quality of their mages is also pretty unfair. Hmm how would I break that shield is the main question now? In most stories and games, the shield is fuelled by a steady flow of mana and concentration and deplete over time or as damage is taken both over time and instantly. If it works like a barrier I will need brute force instantly, if its a shield I just need to wear them out with constant pounding or concentration breaking. The latter is easy because simulating the effects of a flash-bang are easy and they disorient people enough to break concentration especially in this era where they have no idea what it is. The former is the problem, normal guns won't work and quite likely a machine gun won't either since it should be standard armament for this era. Damn that means its the barrier type which requires brute force.

I picked up the rifle I stole from the Empire, now I am no expert in guns but this is a semi-automatic? It has magazines of twelve shots and does not seem to have a pull back bolt not to mention the automatics would have more bullets usually so this is my best guess. My issue is we do not have the means to create more ammunition, not only do I not have the knowledge but I do not have the tools for precision work. Hmm actually there may be something else to be done, the stock goes back straight enough back, if I were to hollow it out... Yes this can work! The best part is all I would need is scrap in the general shape of bullets as ammunition. My workshop did oversee an upgrade in the past few months to be more precise, not enough for bullets but enough to dismantle a rifle which is what I started doing. I shouldn't be happy about designing this especially since it will only kill people but it will work in pair with my orb thanks to some software and thus prevent the technology from leaking easily. Good thing I am a science fiction nerd, I am the kind of guy that claims **_For the Emperor and Sanguinius!_** before _**For the Horde!**_ so you know, I kind of know the theory behind some great stuff. The modifications took all night but the next Imperial I see will have a pretty good surprise. I recycled the twenty four bullets I had into new slugs for this improved weapon, I also secured some vinegar and ammonia, the latter in a way I shall not share because you can't ask a woman these things.

Honestly I did not want to fight, I still don't but all the signs are scaring me too much to ignore, an Empire as strong as a Nazi Germany who also had no hesitation in creating genocide on an already routed enemy on top of using despicable deception tactics to kill civilians. How could I ignore such blatant war crimes, how could I calmly desert a country that will suffer so greatly in the hands of criminals. Maybe this is what God meant by war and making sure he won't be cursed. Turning the tables on the Empire is not very likely but I am sure if he is on my side it is not impossible. I mean Joan of Arc helped reconquer a solid part of France, if she had his help than maybe, just maybe I can do the same except this time it is to keep the country as whole as possible. Three fronts is guaranteed exhaustion for the Empire so my victory condition is to survive the time for the Federation and Republic to do their job. All to prevent Dacia from becoming like Poland in my world, must prevent people from receiving stars at all cost here. May God have mercy on us all.

* * *

 _Author's Notes_

Hello everyone, Gen here, been a while eh, I have no apologies, tired of it and I am sure you guys are as well. This is just how life goes. This chapter was mostly to orient people to the canon universe with a solid anchor and to show that even someone that is logical can fall to emotions at time and make the wrong choices. Look forward to how Naomi resists the invaders and what she has built, I will not spoil it but it will be cool (no worries, its not a busted OP weapon like a satellite laser strike).

Side Note, the next chapters shouldn't take as long since those surprisingly got written up faster and easier than this one, figure that one out.

See you all next time, thank you for sticking around with my story, let me know what you guys think as PM or reviews.


	5. Chapter 5: Dacian Soldier for Hire

_Empire Dacian Line HQ_ _October 5 1924_

 _( Viktoriya Serebryakov_ _)_

 _German_ "What are we looking at exactly?" an officer asked.

 _German_ "The result of the latest fight on the Dacian front sir." a soldier answered.

 _German_ "I know that but please explain why we have to look at this piece specifically."

We were all standing in front of a tank that was broken in the fight against Dacia, most cadre officers from the Southern Army as well as a few members of the 203rd. The tank in question was brought in yesterday and looked at by some experts before we were all summoned this morning. At first look it was perfectly fine, threads were still attached and in order, the canon was not obstructed, the fuel tank was intact.

 _German_ "Please pay attention to the driver side." the soldier pointed.

Usually tanks have a slit to watch where they are going, this one had it as well but also a solid fist sized hole dead centre of it with molten edges. I was not a perfect circle but it was pretty clean, the metal was not punched in like it is for regular anti armour projectiles. It is almost as if it was melted cleanly.

 _German_ "The crewman that drove this died by the same projectile that did this in the armour, the same object was strong enough to make a clean exit on the other side of the tank." This generated a bit of an uproar which was not surprise since the Empire itself had no such projectile, that Dacia had one was inconceivable.

 _German_ "Have we identified the equipment for this projectile, or recovered said projectile?" Lieutenant Colonel Rerugen asked.

 _German_ "Yes sir." He waved another soldier forward and he brought forward on a tray, a small metal ball that was slightly deformed.

 _German_ "Isn't this the same size as a bullet? Are you mocking us?"

 _German_ "No sir, this is the exact object that was found near the exit point of the tank."

 _German_ "And the canon that shot this?"

 _German_ "We have not found anything of the sort sir, whatever is shooting these objects have claimed half a dozen tanks, four artillery and two planes."

This generated a moment of silence, that is a lot of equipment to lose to an unknown weapon and we were no closer to figure out what it was. The Lieutenant Colonel turned to us and it seemed the Major expected such as she stood at attention.

 _German_ "Major Degurechaff, is this possible by a mage?"

 _German_ "Not as far as I know sir, typically we would use explosive spells to deal with any kind of equipment since optical spells do not have the firepower to punch through armour to this extent."

 _German_ "So this is a weapon and not a person?"

 _German_ "That is very likely sir."

 _German_ "In that case, all troops should be alerted as we move forward to secure any military equipment they see from Dacia, we must find that technology for the sake of the Empire."

 _German_ "Sir!" We all saluted at the reception of the new orders. Such a weapon would be beneficial to our situation, if the common soldiers had such a weapon, they could punch through any armour and enemy lines with ease.

* * *

 _September 30 1924_

 _( Naomi Desraft )_

I was back on the front line, for real this time and not a fake front with the 'safe' headquarters. I left the Capital soon after I had finished the weapon modification and some clothes preparation with rations. I did not even report to the King, no point since he only mocked me from the first day, that he allowed me to attend the front line was a joke to begin with. All I could see front our front line were fleeing men, they were retreating and quite hastily at that. I followed from a distance since it would be suicidal to fight alone, eventually the retreat came to an end in the middle of a prairie... do I need to comment on this? I feel like there is no need, another massacre is coming. It did not take long for the Imperial army to send in their planes, either they were scouting or were simply always looking to bombard the biggest group of people around, they got here fast. Chaos ensued and that was the closing of the day, in fact we continued this charade for a solid three days until we reached the most fortified western city and holed up inside. It was actually easy for me to slip in now, I got rid of the Imperial uniform and wore my usual clothes of cargo pants with shirt but I still kept my custom bra and the trench coat.

The funny thing about holing up in a town is that it is actually good strategy during a war, they cannot bombard us without killing civilians, it is hard for them to distinguish who is what and they do not have a choice but to fight this army if they wish to advance else we get to shoot them in the back. The problem? Our own supplies will be cut off the moment they encircle to siege, a double edge sword especially since we are half a million soldiers not counting the civilians to feed. Luckily we did not have to wait a day for the Imperial army to get here, at least now if we starve we can surrender and get some emergency rations from them and strain their supplies some more. The strain of being a higher power must be absolutely ridiculous but that is the cost of conquering. On a personal note, I cannot allow them to conquer this city since it would actually be the first they would take over since their war started and that means it will bear the brunt of the sins that are to come.

The battle preparation went on as expected, well from me at least, the Imperials actually dug some trenches as their infantry encircled around the town entrances. One could see actual armoured tanks taking position as well to guard in case we tried a cavalry rush, well if we had cavalry we might have tried but we don't so you know. They kept all their artillery from the direction they came from which is understandable, no point exposing the back of your batteries to possible reinforcement from inland. The battle did not actually start until night, well I say that but it was just me, I managed to climb to the top of a church bell tower using the ladders inside. I stayed well inside to hide in the darkness, took out my modified rifle, attached a scope I had made in a hurry, I hoped it was a 4X or higher but well did not get the chance to do much fine tuning to it. I hand loaded the improvised slugs to complete the circuit and took aim. I used a bit of magic to prepare a few things, first cat eyes for night vision, second is muscle rigidity to maintain a stable aim, third was preparing the spell for my shot which would be mana intensive so I had to build it up. I spotted the biggest piece of artillery in their lineup and took aim, I forgot to paint a crosshair in the scope... okay well I centred the artillery as much as humanly possible, held my breath, engaged the calculations for the spells with the built in software so I did not have to do all that mentally on top of tracking my target with it and once I felt they were done, I pulled the trigger.

The mana depletion did not hit me as hard as I had anticipated but it was still not negligible, the air around me shimmered violently at the sudden surge of electromagnetic pulses that came out of my improvised railgun. The recoil was nonexistent which is a great sign that the physics worked out as planned. The slug got superheated as well since it light up the sky as it flew faster than a bullet and missed its mark... Shit I was off by a few metres. I quickly took my knife out to scratch a quick point to aim in the scope and do some quick adjustments, that slug will probably attract the attention of anyone looking out. The great thing is that this kind of weaponry produces very little sound at this scale at the cost of speed and efficiency of course. I took my second shot at the same artillery, I could feel my hair getting a bit fuzzy which means I should revise the algorithm to take grounding into consideration. The artillery system sustained very little damage when the slug hit, I mean I wasn't expecting an explosion, not one bit I swear. Where are the red barrels when you need them? A third look actually revealed to me that although it did not explode, the damage was considerable, I mean I punctured the middle support and right through the barrel so unless they want heavy deviation they will not use it.

I continued my task for as long as I had mana and slugs, I had more of the later and I had to call it quits at roughly five shots. I have a lot of work to improve this magic but at least I know it works, not to make efficiency my main concern. I looked at my railgun and noticed it was getting bent on top of my coils being almost burnt... shit I guess my materials were too rushed, rebuilding this is now priority because without it I am reduced to our regular army rifles which are terrible against armoured targets. I had barely came down from the bell tower that the town went into alert mode to find where the light came from, I mean it would be capable only by a mage and Dacia had none officially. I disappeared into the alleyways to find myself a corner that wasn't damp or exposed, plenty of soldiers sleeping on the streets and I doubt I could get anything in terms of room since I was only a women with no backing right now. That is how I spent my night on this first battle night.

The Imperials had the surprise this morning to have the artillery blow up in their faces this morning, and by that I mean their shells actually got stuck in some of their barrels and broke. I have successfully took out four artillery. The main issue is that I am but a single woman, they are an army, they quickly scrapped them and prepped the next ones. I returned to my bell tower to observe, it was a pretty good vantage point and if I fell I would land on the roof which was barely a story away, very likely to survive. To my surprise, the Imperial's were not firing upon the city, they simply sat outside, did they wish to starve us out? Smart bastards! Well unlike us because it sounds like our troops will try a sortie, the troops were all moving towards the main entrance. I made my way down to see if I could help, I mean I will not rush head first but I will at the very least prevent the Imperial from taking the city on the first day.

"Hold Firm men! We will repel the Imperial Dogs from our city!" the officer called out. "CHARGE!" he screamed as the gates opened and our troops poured out by the hundreds. Did I say I was bad at estimating numbers just by looking? Yeah I am terrible, I cannot count but they poured for a while and many shots rang out. I think this charge lasted a solid fifteen minute, the back who did not know what went on just pushed forward as the front line got slaughtered by the Imperial forces, it wasn't until the tanks opened fire that our troops slowed the advance until the gates remained open with no Dacian passing through, all too scared. I made my way to the gates and what I saw disgusted me, the once lush green fields in front of the city were littered in Dacian corpses and some craters from the tanks and grenades probably. I walked to the centre of the gate and stood there, the Imperial did not shoot, probably because I was wearing their trench coat so they might think I was a hostage or something. That was too bad for them, I spotted three tanks, I breathed in once, twice, alright I made up my confidence and hoisted my railgun up, I did not repair it yet but it will suffice for now. I poured my magic out and calculated all three targets to align properly, loaded the first slug and shot, loaded the second and shot, moved to the last on my right and shot him as well the moment I was done with the third slug. My railgun overheated and was done for, it would need intensive repair to the point it would be better to make a new one. That did not matter as all three tank were now immobile, all had a nice melted hole through the driver slit, thank God, literally, that I could calculate the trajectory and influence it else I would never have this kind of accuracy. I turned to see the Dacian army in shock of what I just did.

"Soldiers!" I yelled "The enemy is to be crushed by your fierce charge, destroyed by your rifles and bayonets. The honour of Dacia, our country, must not be stained. Soldiers! Heroes! The supreme command has erased our army from its records. Our army has been sacrificed for the honour of Dacia and the Fatherland. Therefore, you no longer need to worry about your lives: they no longer exist. So, forward to glory! For the Lord and the Fatherland! In the name of God, Long live Dacia!"

I pointed forward as I finished my speech and with a thundering roar our demoralized army blazed on through. They left me behind but that was because I would not run with a broken weapon, that is courting death but seeing me neutralize the tanks and call on their honour and their love of their country worked very well. I suddenly got pulled out of the charge and aside where I now stood in front of the officer in charge.

"Why hello there." I greeted with a smile.

"Who are you and what did you do?" He didn't look very friendly with his angry gaze.

"I took out the Imperial tanks and raised morale?"

"That does not answer my questions." He crossed his arms, note that mine were being held on both sides, yeah he had two soldier thugs to hold me here.

"I am Naomi Desraft, I was initially with the head quarters the day the vanguard got routed, and all I did was shoot the tanks with the rifle." He wasn't believing me, cannot blame him I suppose.

"Fine I understand." he sighed, "It would be bad to have our troops follow a woman though, not good for morale."

"Er... but weren't they more excited when I lead them then when you did?"

"Consistent, solid morale is worth more than temporary excitement, I will confiscate your rifle for it shall help us against the Imperial dogs."

"Are you sure you do not want my personal help in this?"

"Yes, now go home little lady, war is not your playground."

Tch! First day I get to do something, I do it right and this is how I get treated, how annoying. I wrestled free of his thugs as they took the broken railgun. This is fine, I got the materials to make another in my bag which I should retrieve now, if the commander is smart he will abandon the town, it is only a matter of time until the Imperials lose patience and bombard the town mercilessly, if the victors write history then there are no war crimes committed right. I actually had to sit out the entire day, it came down to a field battle after the charge I led, the Dacian army actually gained some traction and terrain to line up the Imperials but the difference in firepower, positions and tactics shone brilliantly for them. Their casualties must be in the dozens while us in the hundreds, it wasn't so bad until the tank reinforcements came into the fray and the artillery shot into our outside positions. Now our casualties numbered in the thousands and we ended the day back into the city. How unproductive! The worse is how this kept going for another two days! When our supplies got low the commanders finally made the call to abandon the town, we had to reunite with our delivery which should be blockaded somewhere to the east. The plan was for a very early charge to exit but I decided to do it at night, much safer, with some ropes I simply scaled down the walls that had little to no guards for some reason. This army was ridiculous, initially I thought I could be like Joan of Arc and turn the table on the invaders but on rational thoughts this was simply not possible. Mounting a resistance would be foolish since we would have no support, the very idea of such a group is not yet accepted and would draw scorn from the world. I think all I can do now is slow down the Imperials slowly by taking down VIP and heavy equipment, slowly bleed them out on this front before defecting elsewhere.

I had found myself a small sleeping spot between the roots of a big tree to await our grand escape in the morning and I awoke to those sounds specifically. From where I was it seems the commander had chosen a group of soldiers to fight while the rests escape, rear guard duty eh. May the Lord had mercy on your souls you brave soldiers. They earned a prayer, that is an undeniable fact. As most of the soldiers kept running, the Imperials started pouring over while overpowering the vastly outnumbered rear guard. The tanks were actually leading the charge, this I can help with, I had the time to recycle a Dacian rifle and remodel to railgun v2 with improved software as well. This is ferrous magnetic which is not the best but the punch will hurt more. I took down the tanks chasing in a one-two combo which created a lot of doubt in the Imperials and they stopped chasing. They probably think I am a sniper, which is not wrong, but I am more of an anti material sniper than an infantry sniper. This actually bought enough time to escape since their army had to take their time to sweep the city clean of any residual soldiers. This is the first city to fall to the Empire, there were a few villages but this is the first true settlements we should have cared about.

I marched sideways to the Dacian army, that commander is probably very wary of me and as a woman with no backing, it would be very risky to walk back in that group. It took another day before the Imperials sent more planes our way, this time it will be different, from the side I immediately loaded a slug and took aim. I wavered a bit when my rosary returned the information that the planes were over three thousand metres high in the skies. In theory my shot should take three seconds to reach them but I am uncertain, lets just input the variables in the rosary and adjust accordingly. I took the first shot and as expected, I never did calculate projectile speed and thus missed. Engaged recalculation, readjusted and shot once more and bingo, hit the engine of the leading plane and made it lose control. Shit they were moving too fast for me though so I could only land one more shot before they reached our army and dropped their load. This is terrible but not as bad as one may think since bleeding two planes is huge, it will take them a while to rebuild what takes me a minute to destroy.

The next day, we are now October 6th, our commanders actually got a good idea and set up a huge army ambush in the forest, put some leaves to hide the remaining canons and now we wait. Well that was the plan but somehow the Imperials saw through, or should I say their elites, their mages have entered the fray and advanced with their army. We barely had time to spot their frontline tanks and infantry, someone got trigger happy, shot the Imperials and all hell broke loose with a failed ambush. The elites were safely in the air raining fire down on the ambush position. Those damn bastards, let's see how your shields withstand the might of modern weaponry and science-fiction. This time for some reason the slug made a very satisfying *click* into the chamber as I took aim, I could not find the guy without helmet, seems he grew a brain since I last saw him or he bit a bullet, literally. I poured magic into my rosary and it started calculating to the random mage I chose which was closest to me although to my surprise it seemed to have caused them to break formation and scatter around. I held the trigger and waited, this was odd of them to not pressure more when they were safe and we have nothing to be a threat to them. After a short scatter by them they remade formation and a four men team seemed be making their way towards me as the rest returned to the ambush. Counter mage tactics I can only assume, I should have seen this coming since the railgun uses a huge amount and it needs to be stocked before release which makes me a giant beacon to any tracking system, logically speaking.

This made my life a bit more difficult but I will roll with it, I changed the calculation towards the group approaching me, I aimed towards the leader and pulled the trigger. Maybe it was because I held the magic for longer than before but the shot actually rang back into my shoulder enough that I had to swing the rifle back to not dislocate my arm. The slug hit its mark perfectly and made a beautiful glass breaking sound against his barrier and he fell to the ground. Unfortunately he couldn't break his neck falling since one of the four caught him in time but he was out of the fight for sure. I am now invisible to their tracking since I unloaded the shot and I started running deeper into the woods, they won't find me easily but I am trying to keep an eye out on the battle so there is always a chance to be found. It seems the elites did not appreciate the taste of a slug and actually allocated more troops to finding me, there were suddenly ten of them hovering around my position. I am now in a predicament, I cannot shoot without giving myself away and they use lasers which means instant shot because light speed, which means I cannot take out the places and tanks that are breaking the Dacian positions. Well let's just do something stupid then, I ran towards the Imperial positions through the woods and played the catch up game where I try to go to the front line by blending in and acting as if I overslept or something crazy like that in the army.

The trench coat helped a lot and since no one was making detailed checkups I could simply walk in, this was too easy, thank you Lord, I am owing you a lot for my stupid decisions you have to clean up. From here I could see how their search team was still looking for me while the rest destroyed the last canons of the Dacian army. I soon joined the firing line and loaded a slug, took aim and loaded up my shoot into those flying over the Dacian forces. My magic caused them some surprise and I shot another one down instantly, this one was not fatal as well since I only got his sides and he remained flying but he got low to be picked up by the infantry. Tch! Alright let us keep playing guerrilla, I moved from the right side of the Imperial to the left side, war confusion is the easiest to exploit especially since I could see the search team move back to the Imperial front line to look for my magic again. I may not understand how that tracking works but I can imagine the railgun leaves quite the trace since it made my entire space electromagnetic in the bell tower and fuzzed my hair. I did the same thing on the left front and took out another mage, I cannot seem to hit any vitals for some reason, maybe their barrier deflects to some extent? I managed to slip out again and disappear into the woods once more to retreat along the Dacian army. This kind of warfare is fun to some extent but the casualties are not, my countrymen must be a fourth of what they were initially. I did a brief analysis once camp got set up for the night and I viewed from the side, if I believe the old papers I once read, a quarter lost as casualties, a half lost to desertion, the rest will fight or surrender later. This is pathetic, this is no war, just clear genocide.

* * *

 _Empire Dacian Line HQ October 6 1924_

 _( Viktoriya Serebryakov_ _)_

 _German_ "Major Degurechaff, what happened?" Rerugen asked.

 _German_ "We have encountered the weapon." She answered in a slightly angry voice.

 _German_ "Have you managed to recover it?."

 _German_ "No sir, we couldn't even see it to begin with" she answered.

 _German_ "It might help then to see what we have found"

He simply waved us in and the Major invited myself and adjutant Weiss with her but only after we made sure the wounded were taken care of. We never saw it coming, the shots were quiet and only came after a magic spike. It was able to pierce through the mage shell and instantly break the human body, one was shot in the shoulder and based on standard magic healing will put him out of combat for almost a month. Once inside we assembled around a table that had a really dark rifle on it that was modified in a weird way. It had dark rolls of metal close to the bullet release slot and it ran all the way down the barrel with some small plates along the way. The stock was open and revealed a tunnel with a similar design of metal bands and plates except this time the plates were not outside but inside and blocked the tunnel itself. The far end of the stock had a little rough bead inside the tunnel.

 _German_ "We do not understand how it works yet but we recovered this in the same city that took down our tanks. We can only theorize it does not use gunpowder which is odd since it seems to be based on one of our own rifles rather than theirs." an expert I can only assume spoke.

 _German_ "I cannot say we saw this weapon today but we had to fight a mage." the Major spoke.

 _German_ "A Dacian mage?" Lt. Colonel asked.

 _German_ "Yes, as odd as it sounds, he had a very strong magic signature and followed a strict doctrine of one shot one kill. Luckily he never had the chance to finish the job but he was very good, he moved after every shot."

 _German_ "Can I assume he only took three shots since you have three wounded?"

 _German_ "Possibly, my men say they never saw or heard the shot so hits are all that we can count."

 _German_ "Could this gun be magic operated?" I asked, it caused more realization than I expected but if it did not work from gunpowder and we had a mage fight us today we did not know about, it makes sense together.

 _German_ "That would be quite likely Lt. Serebryakov, if we assume this person forces his mana, and a huge amount, inside a special rifle meant to channel it, it is not crazy to say it can break mage shells while being silent."

 _German_ "Major Degurechaff, this mage is very skilled by your words, be careful out there."

 _German_ "Yes sir!" She answered strongly. We retired to our own quarters where I started to brew some coffee for her, she will need it after this long day. She took a moment to savour its smell before drinking it with a relaxed smile.

 _German_ "Major."

 _German_ "What is it Weiss?

 _German_ "What kind of opponent are we against? A new weapon beyond their vanguard, the skills to move around a battlefield including inside our allies and we do not comprehend how they work."

 _German_ "A dangerous foe, myself I do not know, never once have I met an opponent such as this even on the Rhine. A mage in the trenches is not odd by any means but one who is mobile on the ground is new, it allows them to disappear from tracking since they are not using magic to fly."

 _German_ "A clever foe then." I interjected.

 _German_ "Yes exactly, one who knows the land and will use it against us if anything we are at a disadvantage because we fly in the clear skies."

This is a troublesome situation, the Rhine was trenches for infantry and artillery while the mages flew high. Fighting in the woods is new to us, going against someone used to it makes it worse as we are now effectively outgunned and out experienced.

 _German_ "Do we have any idea how this mage looks like?" I suddenly asked.

 _German_ "I suppose there was that one story a while ago about a soldier who held the city, it is probably our mage since the story says the tanks were shot at that point." Weiss explained.

 _German_ "Physical description?" the Major asked.

 _German_ "Medium white hair with a green trench coat, nothing more."

 _German_ "Seems we will have to catch the bastard ourselves next time" the Major smirked at her new prey.

* * *

 _October 20 1924_

 _( Naomi Desraft )_

The war has been... awful... I had to scavenge my rations from the Dacian army and by that I mean steal some. The commanders do not enjoy the presence of a woman but when the troops see me they cheer, seems they were smarter than the nobles and they remember how I take out enemy armour. Unfortunately my slugs are not as good as before, I had to resort to Dacian bullets crushed down which is not exactly the same due to different heat resistance which has actually slowed down my shots. The Imperial army has marched on restlessly with us barely slowing them down, three quarters of the country has fallen already, Luke's fief included but as far as I know he should be fine since he keeps the place running. He is a lot braver than before and should be able to negotiate properly with the Empire to maintain his spot, that is assuming he cooperates with their crimes if... I mean when they get to it. I do not know which Reich the Empire is in but I must stop it from being like the third.

The fighting has become more scarce for us, we are probably a tenth of our initial force, desertion has hit us hard but you cannot blame them, this was hopeless. The Empire has extensive resources and has deployed almost a hundred thousand troops plus armoured tanks and planes, there was no way we could win, I was too green to realize it. The elite mages have also develop manners to locate and intercept me so my influence on the field of battle is very limited now. The first shot calls a third of them over and they actually dive into the woods to find me so I need to lay low and not move for the rest of the battle. I have tried to blend into their troops again but this too they dive in and remain hovering around so I cannot act out of line. I did wound a couple more of them but I believe the first one of them I shot was already back on the field, his convalescence was much too short, damn their fantasy magic. Since night was falling I descended from my side hill towards the encampment, it became almost a routine to spend diner with some of the soldiers since it is only the commanders that hate me, the rest appreciate my presence. I went to a fire and sat with some of the brave Dacian soldiers still remaining.

"Good to see you Goddess of War." One of them greeted me with a warm drink of water.

"Thank you. I am no Goddess, if I were we would be chasing them out." I replied as I appreciated the warmth in my hands.

"A Goddess is not always about victory but about taking care of her people." This earned smiles from everyone around in agreement.

"You do know there is only one God."

"Of course but he only stays up there waiting for our souls, that is hard for us to pray to."

"Or he may stay there to welcome you while he sends people such as I down here to guide you to him and the enemy to hell." I smirked.

"Haha maybe so but I am just a man, I am not able to understand the will of Heaven."

This became a routine after I earned the title of Goddess from the soldiers, they know they cannot speak of me in front of the commanders but within each other they spread the news. It also did not take long after I arrived that the number of soldiers around this fire grew considerably to the point we had to move some tents and make a few more fires to accommodate everyone around. It was a nice little atmosphere of small talks.

"This may be a terrible thing to ask but what will happen to us in this war dear Goddess?" a soldier suddenly asked.

"The outcome is as obvious to you as it is to me." I smiled wryly.

"Is there truly no hope?"

"None for victory." I shook my head sideways and it caused a wave of unease all around. "The goal of this army now is to bleed the Empire as much as it can before we fall, how many of those bastards can we make die."

"What good will that do if we will lose regardless?"

"It will increase their stress on other fronts, limit the garrison they can enforce on us and give us more opportunity to make a successful fight for liberation later."

"Lose this war to win the next? That is too optimistic as it relies on them not executing every five man after their victory."

I thought I was the only one mad enough to think the Empire would do barbaric acts like the Nazi Germany I knew but seems it is common consensus. This encourages me even more to start a guerrilla resistance force after this open war is done, nothing hurts an army more than a thorn bleeding its sides and morale.

"Being a higher power forces them to not do such acts but if they do, that will encourage countries like the Commonwealth, the Unified States and the Federation to step in themselves." This provided some light of hope to the rest of the men as it assured that if they live they can free their country, else their sacrifice would mean the end of the Empire.

The fighting kept going for the next few days as we retreated even further but now our backs were to the wall as we arrived to the Capital of Dacia. This was it. The final stand of the Dacian army. I did not even return home nor did I visit the ruins of the factory, I stayed with the soldiers this time and hopefully plan something to bleed the enemy some more. A commanding officer did spot me but with a shrug ignored me and kept going, I guess he has given hope and does not care enough at this point. Unfortunately in this situation, I had to make a stupid plan as to which I presented to the soldiers around me.

"You cannot be serious?!" one of the yelled.

"I am yes."

"That is suicidal!" another added.

"Listen, I NEED to fight outside the Capital, whenever I shoot half of their mages come to me and I am the only one with the power to punch through their barrier. The second idea is to set an ambush inside town but that puts the civilians at risk and the Imperial mages won't hesitate to shoot them as well." I explained.

"But going alone is just ridiculous!"

"I am aware but at least I can hide in the woods, the town would be a bit more difficult since I stand out with this coat and a rifle in my hands."

"At least let us come with you, we can make an ambush in the woods!"

"Your guns won't even faze them."

"But we have bayonets and enough trees to cover us."

"It's your funeral but at least do not wear the uniform, go for something brown or green." I gave up, they might help me and if they want to die I won't argue against it.

"Of course now wait for us." They smiled. Those bastards played me good, they came back with three time more people than those who knew the plan but at least none of them had the flashy uniform of the Dacian military. It was still morning when we set up in the nearby woods and laid low, far enough from the road so the Imperials should not spot us early. Luckily for us the Dacian commanders were still stupid and started lining up outside the walls for a last stand battle rather than let a siege happen. That means the Imperial army can win this all in a single day and the citizens should not suffer immediately. It was in the afternoon that the Imperial army stormed on through with the tanks leading the way, that means the mages were waiting for me. They knew I had the habit of breaking the charge by shooting the tanks and disabling them so they were baiting me here but I won't bite, not yet, have to get the mages first to get more than a single shot in on them. Taking out a mage is more significant than a tank due to what they do on the battlefield. The first shots rang out on the field of battle and we still had not moved, the soldiers around me as well were waiting but man was it getting hot in here.

"Goddess do not worry we are here for you." one whispered to me.

"Why would I worry?"

"You are sweating a lot compared to us."

Maybe it's the stress of not being alone for once, or maybe because I know they will all die before me because of me. I have no idea but I had to wipe myself and try to concentrate on the battle. It took a little bit but our patience paid up when the Imperial mages lost patience and came flying over us. My body was hot for some action, I took aim at their formation that looked like an arrowhead and started the calculations. This gave me away and even made us a perfect bombing run target but taking down the lead should demoralize them the same way a broken tank demoralizes troops.

* * *

 _A few minutes before_

 _( Viktoriya Serebryakov_ _)_

"I do not think the mage will show himself easily." I said after we had waited a solid thirty minutes.

"He must have learned that we always target him first." Weiss added.

"If he won't take the shot his allies will get wiped out." Koenigg added

"If that is the case we shall simply lure him out, he has shown a tendency to aim at us whenever we fly by." The Major finally spoke before leading the flight to combat. We all flew into position for combat and made way to the front line, our mission would be like before to take out the canons and officers before backing off and tracking down their mage. We barely had the front line in view that we immediately felt the magic signature of the Dacian mage, an unmistakable spike on the radar, the only question now was who was he aiming at.

"Scatter now!" The Major suddenly called before breaking position and taking evasive maneuvers, we wasted no time following the order and some of us used decoys. It was all for naught as the signature disappeared from radar the same moment that a barrier flared into life but unlike before it did not shatter like glass. This golden shell withstood the silent shot as it flew proudly by, it was the Major's shield who took the hit.

"Major are you okay?" I immediately asked.

"Yeah just a bit shocked, were it not for the type-95 I would have fell to the ground. Squad one to three close in on the signature, squad four provide the front line with support you should be more than enough." We immediately moved as ordered and as if called, the spike reappeared.

"Beware of an ambush, usually he would move after his shot so he must be feeling safe!" Weiss called out.

We did not hear the second shot nor seen it even though we enhanced our senses with magic and the golden shell flared once more but the Major's flight path wavered a bit under the impact.

"Damn I can feel him aiming but I cannot predict the shot." She was mumbling.

The third shot never happened but we broke through the leafs and branches to seek any figures but as per usual there was nothing. No Dacian uniform, no gun, no burn marks and no magic spike and not to mention we never saw the shots thus pinpointing was difficult. We moved around to ruffle a few leaves to try and flush him out but nothing. All of a sudden a dozen men showed up from behind the trees and opened fire, nothing our shells couldn't take but not taking chances we started to take cover before returning fire. The Dacian mage actually made an appearance at the middle of the ambushers, we all felt the spike and looked at the direction only to see a regular sized person in a trench coat, one of ours, with white hair, I could not see the face from my angle and the coat seemed open thus gave me nothing as to his stature. The shot made no sound again but the rifle clearly swung back and smoked a bit as the Major's shield flared again. I saw the mage head make a quick movement down before he bolted away to hide among the trees once more.

* * *

 _( Naomi Desraft )_

This fucking bastard, I swear to God I will make him fall, two freaking slugs in the air with a clean hit to the barrier and still he doesn't go down. I saw him waver on the second hit which means it is probably an actively mana fed barrier thus the more I shoot, the weaker the mage gets. I signalled everyone to get down as they broke through the trees and we waited, one heartbeat, two heartbeat, three heartbeat, those mean a lot of time in combat and as agreed they all came out to shoot the nearest Imperial. This caused panic among them that they even forgot about their shields as they retreated behind their own trees. I maintained magical lock on to my primary target who did me a favour by coming down here personally, this time for sure. I loaded the next slug and stood up to take aim, it was actually a dwarven soldier I was shooting at but whatever, you lead the pack you get shot and thus I pressed the trigger. The rapid fire made my rifle hot so I had to shoot it upwards to discharge and was greeted once more by a very thick golden shield. _Tch_! This was very annoying, I knew I earned some more attention and thus I dove back into the trees, failing to take down the leader was actually a worse case scenario here.

The Imperials shot a lot towards me but there were a few natural trenches that I abused to stay hidden and move around in the thickets. They eventually got very annoyed since taking down opponents in a forest is a pain, to the point they actually flew out of it. That is when they hit us, and very hard, they bombarded the forest, they knew I was still around with some more soldiers so it was very efficient of them to take us all out with certitude, the damn bastards!

"Break up and retreat, we cannot win if they know where we are." I yelled out, this was my only hope to have some of them survive this. We all ran our own way, no time to lose trying to group as that makes us easier targets. I almost choked when my coat got stuck in some broken branches, fuck it was useful but not anymore, I took it off in a hurry and kept running. I took a quick glance over my shoulder just to see things flying everywhere in the devastation, bloody hell I hope those Dacian soldiers were alive. I took a quick jump over a bush only to get knocked out by a hard piece of something hitting the back of my head. When I came to, half the forest around me was charred, my rifle had an unknown location and I felt really bad, I mean like really really bad. Exhaustion and seasickness would be the easiest way to describe it as well as a healthy dose of cramps everywhere. I struggled to get on my knees to get a better look around. It looks like the Imperials have not taken the capital yet which is fine I suppose, the majority of the forest on this side is burnt, a few Imperials poking in it by the looks of it. Shit that means I have to move before they reach me, I won't be able to walk in the capital at this stage of the war but I can at least stay alive outside for a short while. I groaned louder than I would have wanted as I forced myself to get up and jog through the woods that were not burnt.

For some reason I believed it was better to circle around the burn area and walk towards the emplacement of the Imperials. It was especially stupid considering how I felt I would not be able to fight, I actually have a fogged vision to some extent. I eventually came behind some Imperial soldiers who were talking.

 _German_ "Do you truly believed he survived?"

 _German_ "We have pulled a few corpses but nothing that says he is one of them.

 _German_ "Damn that mage is truly a headache, he even gave the Major a hard time."

 _German_ "The main strength of that mage is his quiet firepower and mobility on ground, anywhere else and the Major would have won."

 _German_ "Yeah but this is his field so he had the upper hand the whole time."

 _German_ "Yeah"

They stood there a while before the taller one walked away, I really couldn't make sense from their conversation, it came out as _Blah Blah Blah_ to me mostly. The smaller one stayed behind, this could lead to trouble since the odds of me making noise leaving is very likely and getting found is not the right solution so I will take him out before continuing. I drowsily move up and draw the pistol from my belt and aimed at him as I creeped forward.

"Bang bang." and now she was eliminated so I turned to see if I could catch the second person as well before disappearing but I tripped immediately, I couldn't feel my right leg. Actually I couldn't feel both of them, I groaned as I turned on myself and simply laid there, I couldn't move anything, couldn't see much either nor hear. I felt someone step beside me and then a figure over me, can't say I remember what happened afterwards.

* * *

 _( Viktoriya Serebryakov_ _)_

"Bang bang!"

I reacted right away at the voice and draw my rifle as I spun, I found myself aiming at the trees, how odd, where did the sound come from. That is when I noticed someone on the ground who was face first in the dirt, they groaned as they barely flipped over. She was a pretty girl wearing some pants with lots of pockets, a red long sleeved shirt with a corset, her belt had pouches. I checked for weapons but there were none, was she a local civilian? I walked up to her as I lowered my weapon, she opened her eyes and from here I could see how clouded they were, she was very obviously in a bad state.

 _German_ "Miss are you okay?" I asked as I knelt. She barely responded to my voice. I tried to shake her a bit but she still did not respond, I checked her to see what could be wrong. Her head was still on, her upper body was a bit rough, scratches and some torn bits, nothing major. I kept checking down and saw her pants were getting wet in between the legs, please forgive me for this, I felt around and I could see the reason when my hand came back red. This girl must have issues with this, she must be my age or a bit younger but I understand her situation. I took off my coat to cover her before I called for some help, she will need a better place to rest then here in the charred remains and some clothes to change.

 _German_ "Serebryakov, who is that?"

 _German_ "I don't know Major but I thought leaving a civilian in the woods would be bad."

 _German_ "Huh? We are the invading army lieutenant, why should we care for a civilian that got lost in the woods."

 _German_ "Because when we win she will be an Imperial citizen that we are sworn to protect." I puffed up my chest a bit.

 _German_ "Why did you bring her here then? Why not the medical tent?" She capitulated on that point before asking another.

 _German_ "Hm ma'am, because she isn't actually hurt, she just needs a place to rest."

 _German_ "My question remains Lt. Serebryakov."

 _German_ "Ma'am you may not have it yet but she is suffering from it and just needs some rest and we may be some of the rare woman around so I thought we could help her out." I started fidgeting a bit, how to explain it to a child like the Major in the presence of the men in our wing.

 _German_ "Just give her a bed then but do not let her affect our duties here, we do not have the time to care about every single civilian out there." She seemed to have either understood or given up.

 _German_ "Yes thank you Major." I saluted and arranged for this girl to have a room in our base of operations, if she were a local it wouldn't be long until she could go home to begin with. Hopefully she wakes up feeling a lot better tomorrow.

* * *

Author's Notes

Hi hi it'sa me again, surprise it only took a week for this one, as I said like 2 chapters ago, that some of them came out easier than others, this was one of them, I simply knew what I wanted in it.

A few things I should remind you guys about, in chapter 2? Naomi mentions having a very hard time coping with her time each month to the point of locking herself up like a hermit in her room. Her gun is not actually a railgun, it is a coil gun (mostly) but we can forgive someone who doesn't have access to the internet to double check right? For those good in physics, they would know how much electricity is needed to operate one of those and in this case it is trump by magic because what is ratio from electricity and mana? Also she doesn't shoot over 3 m/s (railgun can exceed this), it is more like 0.75-1.5 m/s (depends on slug and status of gun) which is slightly over the speed of a bullet.

I wanted to do more prophet business here but it turned out to just be an idol taking over the place of Being X lol, new religion when?

Thank you all again for reading, as per usual let me know what you think and look forward to next time (should also be short since I figured it out already but no promises)

Trivia:  
Bang Bang is a courtesy call used in Airsoft when you managed to get close enough to someone and aim at them it "kills" them in that game. It is out of respect to not hurt them because there is a minimum distance of engagement. IT IS NOT A REQUEST TO SURRENDER, IT IS THE SAME AS SHOOTING! Can anyone guess what Naomi did on weekends in her last life?


	6. Chapter 6: Injured Dacian for Hire

**\- Quick Note -**

 **Default speech is now German and will NOT be tagged, Dacian will be from now on**

* * *

 _Empire Dacian Forward HQ_ _October 21 1924_

 _( Naomi Desraft_ _)_

I came to slowly staring into a white ceiling... I supposed it was moving although that shouldn't be possible since ceilings are solid structures. A quick look around revealed that I was completely surrounded in this white moving ceiling, there was also another bed beside the one I was on. Where am I? I could only wonder before falling back into the hazy dream world. This process repeated itself and unknown amount of time, I did not even know what time of the day it was. It finally stopped the moment I managed enough conscience to sit up which almost made me fall off the bed, my head was still very light. How did I get here? What is going on? I performed a quick checkup on myself and the truth came to light when I lifted the covers... oh... this would happen to me. I may have reincarnated but my luck stat is still as low as ever, not abysmal since in theory I should have died but still pretty bad.

I got off the bed slowly, had to use it as support to prevent from falling over, recovery will take a while, two days, give or take one. My current clothes were foreign to me, felt like hand me downs though but I would need a different attire now since I may have stained them a bit. A quick search in nearby bags gave me an imperial uniform, female to boot, I changed without a second thought. Recovering my field clothes will not be on today's list of things to do. On a second note, whoever wore this uniform before me was... actually well developed, there was an awful feeling of empty space on my chest with the loose fabric. Where was this girl in my previous life. Once I was done crying about my still growing assets, I walked *cough* I mean wobbled outside the tent now that I can identify things properly.

The sun shone brightly still in the sky although obviously descending, this must be late afternoon then, I have actually slept a whole day! As soon as my eyes got used to the new lighting I stopped covering them and looked around. There were plenty of imperial soldiers moving around, everyone with a purpose it seems with crates, weapons, some hustling about and discussions quickly ending with salutes. Well shit, it seems that I somehow ended up in the enemy camp, again, my escape this time will probably not be as easy. I started walking south by taking small but steady steps, any faster would have me crawl there. It took me a considerable amount of time but I covered good grounds, I eventually reached a series of tables, when did they find the time to set these up? It had a delicious smell going around, probably what lured me subconsciously, my stomach gave a terrifying growl to which I could only embarrassingly press my hand against. A whole day sleeping without food will do this to anyone I suppose. A few deep breaths, I can keep going, I need to keep going, wouldn't want to be stuck in the imperial camp. I kept walking and found myself in front of the soup serving table, I have failed myself miserably.

"Can I help you little girl?" a cook came up.

"Ah! Yes, could I have a portion please?" I was shocked, I did not see him coming.

"Sorry miss, it is not diner time yet."

"Please? I did not have anything today yet." I am in a state where even begging is acceptable, where has my pride gone?

"And where were you then?" He put his hands on his hips.

"I was..." wait, what is the imperial word for convalescence? As I was pondering he was frowning so I had to settle. "I was wounded and had to rest the whole day."

"You had to think of that one a bit too long, try again at diner time miss."

I could only sigh as he tried to shoo me away, I took a deep breath and started unbuttoning my shirt. He only smiled, fuck I hate this, its a weird feeling. I stopped when I could open the shirt, revealing the undershirt I found which I proceeded to lift a bit and expose my scar from the first day of battle. He frowned, well I guess he would, I did not expose anything else as he was probably expecting.

"Quite the scar, bullet?"

"Magic." I answered as simply as possible.

"My apologies miss, let me get you a portion then." His tone changed the moment he learned I took magic damage, wonder why. It did not matter as I buttoned my shirt back and made sure it looked clean, there was no one around so lucky me, would have been bad to be known as a stripper for food. He came back finally with a sort of metal plate-bowl, a plate with high sides to hold soup okay my vocabulary isn't that great. I used to name stuff however I wanted now I have to find the proper words. With a smile I took the plate with a spoon and found myself a seat at one of the tables. My stomach was growling uncontrollably at the smell of this soup, my hand shook the whole time as I raised the spoon to my mouth and then pure bliss. The food taste was not that great to begin with but having substance was more than enough and pleased me all around. I became almost like a little girl as I ate with a big smile, no dry rations, no lukewarm water, just one nice bowl of warm soup. I ate every little bit and put the spoon down, fully satisfied as I chuckled a bit to myself.

"So this is where you were." A female voice called out beside me. I simply turned my head and look up to a lovely girl in uniform. She must be around my age or a few years older and carried herself proudly, she put her rifle against the table as she sat in front of me. Her hair was short, just over the shoulder with a lovely golden tint and confident green eyes. "Are you feeling any better?" She asked.

"Ah yes! I am sorry I cannot say I remember much about how I got here. Also I do apologize for borrowing this set of clothing, I simply had nothing else." I was panicking a bit, this is actually a worse case scenario isn't it?

"Oh do not worry about that, I left them there for you since there was nothing else to wear, this is the front line after all." She had a nice smile.

"Thank you very much, hmm miss?"

"I am Viktoriya Serebryakov but my friends call me Visha, second lieutenant in the 203rd aerial mage battalion."

"Oh I am Naomi Desraft, an honour to meet you miss Serebryakov." I bowed to her as sign of respect, she is a woman with an actual rank and a mage to boot. This means that I have shot at her or her close comrades, this is dangerous.

"I must say I was truly surprised to find you in the woods, what were you doing out there?" She asked.

"Surviving the war, fleeing the front lines and they caught up to me mostly."

"Why would a girl my age have to run alone?"

"My father died the first day and my mother could not do anything, so I fled to survive in the world mostly."

"I am sorry." She lowered her head a bit.

"What for?"

"Our advance has brought you grief and I am sorry, we wish for peace as well but we did not have the option to negotiate."

"That is not for you to apologize, as far as I know it is my country which has forced your hands, if anything it is to me to apologize for dragging you all into this folly that is war." I bowed once more, this time in an apologetic way.

"I see we both wish for peace, that is good news." She had a gentle smile now. We chuckled a bit together, the awkwardness somehow disappeared, I think we were both victims of these times.

"May I ask why you bothered helping me? A lone civilian close to the front lines, in theory you should have left me there and focus on your enemies rather than help their citizens." I had to know since this was a weird case.

"As a soldier I am tasked with the duty to not only eliminate enemy soldiers but also protect imperial citizens." She answered proudly.

"Wait, me as an imperial citizen? Has the war already ended?"

"Yes, come midday we had taken the Capital, the fighting is over and you can return home."

A whole country defeated within a month, isn't this just a bit ridiculous? I knew the difference was big but I mean that only happened thanks to blitzkrieg in my old life, this is still the time of trench warfare and thus that technique should not exist yet. At the very least I have confirmed that the soldiers are not SS in general but those guys never did show up in front lines now did they.

"Will you be okay to return home? If it is on our way I could organize you to travel with us."

"Ah, no it should be fine, I have family in the Capital."

"That is good to know you will be fine." She had an honest smile to her.

"Ah! I will wash the uniform as soon as I reach home and return it."

"That would be appreciated but please take time to meet with your family before you do so, you mustn't lose sight of your priorities."

"I appreciate the thought miss Serebryakov, let us meet again for some coffee sometimes."

"That would be a pleasure miss Desraft, have a safe trip."

We parted in good terms, I took my chances and checked her out as she walked away, good shape, well endowed which explains the size of the chest of my current shirt, her hips just rolled nicely as she walked. It is official, she will make a very beautiful wife to a lucky man someday, if only I could have had my old life body then I would have done something. With sadness in my soul I returned the plate before setting out towards the Capital. The imperial uniform was oddly comfortable on me, maybe because I was used to dressing properly before so it just kind of fit. I managed to arrive without interruptions to the city gates where imperial soldiers were now guarding, once more I just passed without problem either by them not caring or the uniform.

Walking through the streets of the Capital showed me the same faces I saw almost a month ago, lifeless, hopeless, sadness, anger in the face of the citizens. We have been defeated on all front and now this country's future is uncertain and for its people. We departed to reclaim our land and instead lost everything, shops were mostly closed, the taverns were kept shut by Imperial soldiers, probably to prevent drunkards causing trouble. I received some angry looks myself since I was wearing an imperial uniform but I ignored them, none knew who I was to begin with.

I finally arrived to the manor of my family, left unscathed since the imperials did not bombard the city which is fantastic in my opinion. I walked in and by pure luck saw no one, this is a stroke of luck since being seen in this uniform would be mighty hard to explain. I made way to my room, as slowly as when I woke up because I was still feeling light, the food truly made the difference today. My first order of business was to change into my comfort clothes, the second was to assemble all of my schematics and blueprints to throw in a fireplace. I could not take chances, if the imperials knew I had a custom rifle and orb they would want it and thus all proofs must be removed. Once that was done I made my way to wash the uniform since Viktoriya would want it back and I may or may not have dirtied it. I opened the door to the cleaning room and came face to face with a maid, guess they did not retire for the evening yet.

"Miss Naomi... you are alive" She jumped to hug me.

"Liliana, I am glad to see you are okay." I wobbled a bit.

"Miss, are you hurt, you have a bit of problem standing up?" She started to check my condition.

"Yes yes I am fine, just my time of the month, nothing can be done."

"Oh I see, my apologies for being insensitive."

"No worries, could you help me with something here."

"Isn't this..."

"Yes I know, but I was stuck in the woods and collapsed, they picked me up and nursed me back and here I am with borrowed clothes. They didn't have civilian clothing."

"I understand, since they have returned miss Naomi to us, then I shall oblige them this time."

Nothing can be done about this kind of anger, only time can forgive the invaders since no one likes losing what they know and grew up with. Our noble society will probably collapse on itself while the Imperial reform our land to their standards. This goes without saying that my father's company will also crumble now that the factory is in the ground and so is he, my credibility and backing along with it. She showed me how to wash clothes properly in this era, something I had not needed to learn until now. Once that was done we both retired for the night, I needed more rest and she needed her own time to accept the fate of our country. I cannot say I have experienced being conquered before, in terms of countries obviously, so I have no idea what to do exactly other than just wait for the new order to come down.

* * *

 _Old Dacian Capital_ _October 21 1924_

 _( Viktoriya Serebryakov_ _)_

It was nice to see that the young girl recovered well enough to walk on her own, she must be tougher than what she showed me so far. Although she has lost her father, this is the reason we need to fight harder to end this war, to prevent more victims such as herself. It came later in the evening that the Major called for the squad leaders and myself. We were summoned by the higher officers inside the old Capital itself in a diner hall used as a meeting room. At one end sat most of the Dacian higher officials including the general we captured the first day and their king, they were guarded by military police. We were invited to stand behind our Major at the other end of the table. Most of the discussions were based around what will become of them and their country along as to how we will disband the rest of their peasant levy. We met little opposition the moment they learned they would retain all their property and assets assuming they paid the reparation fees properly.

"Onto the matters of your military power now." One of our officers opened up. "We have performed an inquiry about your supplies, weaponry and soldiers today after combat and would have a few questions."

 _Dacian_ "General." Their king called him out and he grunted as he showed his chin to other officers.

 _Dacian_ "Your majesty, we took command after his capture."

 _Dacian_ "So be it, you answer his questions then."

"I shall answer your questions on that matter" One of their commanders spoke up.

"There were reports that most of your weapons came from the Royal factory which is now in ruins yet we have noticed a vast difference in your gun models."

"They were made over the span of a decade and at first there were many smaller factories which lead to difference in the same model."

"What happened to those factories?"

"The demon negotiator took them over in a very aggressive style."

"The demon negotiator?" Our officer asked in a confused tone.

"Yes a young lady who negotiated for her father, very cutthroat, they assembled all of them into the big factory you so happily blew up."

"I see." He flipped through a bit more document. "I would like to confirm another thing about that factory, was it helped by foreign powers to expand its operations preceding the war?"

This left all the Dacian officials quiet, our officer tried to round his question differently a few times but they remained quiet. He gave up after a sigh.

"One final question then about your military. Our mages here present encountered your own mage, although singular he provided a solid fight but he did not appear in our inquiry today, any information about him?" This was probably the reason we were summoned tonight, to validate against them but their answer came as a surprise.

"What mage?" Asked their general.

"Did you not employ the service of a mage during this campaign?"

"We have no such thing in our country." A firm denial.

"We are not seeking his death, simply confirming if he had died or not in the fighting yesterday."

"Dead or not, we did not have such a person." The general was adamant.

"Actually, we may not have had a mage, but we did have a witch." Their commander interjected though at the surprise of the general.

 _Dacian_ "You are telling me you sold your soul to the devil for this power!" He sounded furious but I could not understand him.

 _Dacian_ "No of course not, she just stuck to us the whole damn time, saw her blow her tanks by herself with a weird gun."

 _Dacian_ "And who was this witch?" The king spoke.

 _Dacian_ "The bitch who was supposed to only observe whatever the hell was her name." They seemed to have come to something as they all sat back down in shock.

"So did you have a mage or a witch?" Our officer returned into the discussion.

"We had a witch, a woman who did magic but we did not hire her wilfully, she just stuck to us out of her own volition. I even tried to chase her out multiple times but she did not give up."

"A woman? This may be rude considering we have two of them with us today but a woman with magic in the Dacian army sounds odd. It is even weirder to consider that our reports say she had white hair."

"That is ridiculous, she has black hair!"

"Would you know of her name and if she is still alive then?"

"Naomi Desraft, that is her name." The general spoke and it gave me a shock as I gave a brief exclamation of shock which drew attention from almost everyone.

"Would you know something Serebryakov?" The Major asked me.

"Yes ma'am, in fact I met this girl today." This caused some shock to a lot of people.

"What do you mean you met her?" The Major pressed.

"Well, she is the girl we rescued from the woods." The Major became immediately livid. "She did say she would return to her family in the Capital so we kind of know where she is now." I tried to make some recovery here.

"Major Degurechaff." The highest officer present, a Lieutenant Colonel from the Southern Army spoke up.

"Yes sir?!"

"Your subordinate is telling me you had captured, saved and released what is probably the most dangerous Dacian soldier."

"That seems to be the case sir." She suddenly looked very small even for her age.

"You are to capture her again, she should be in position of unknown magic technology and that is our objective here."

"Understood sir!" She stood up and walked with us in tow. We armed ourselves before asking where she lived, seems she was a noble and had a manor in the Capital. She lied to me, she wasn't fleeing the front lines, she was following them the whole time to protect her home here. I could have forgiven if she would have been honest with me but that doesn't seem to be the case now is it.

"Serebryakov."

"Yes ma'am?"

"Don't pick up anymore civilians before doing a background check, we cannot have this happen ever again. This mission to capture her is a lot more dangerous than it needed to be."

"Yes ma'am, I am very sorry for my negligence."

We did a quick flight to her manor, unfortunately as she is now a civilian and this is private property, we had to show some respect and thus we knocked. We could hear some piano playing an unknown tune from inside but no movement and barely any light at this hour. After no response for a while Weiss banged on the door a lot harder and it seems to have caused some echo. It took a little while but we could hear some rushed footsteps and a light coming our way, it opened to a small stature girl with short brown hair and an oil lamp in her hands wearing a simple dress.

 _Dacian_ "Can I help you?" We all looked at each other, none of us truly knew how to speak Dacian.

 _Dacian_ "We have business with miss Naomi Desraft." Our Major spoke in a broken accent.

 _Dacian_ "It is late, could you come back tomorrow? The maid asked us which made the Major frown.

 _Dacian_ "It is okay, invite them in and lead them to the studies please, bring some coffee as well please." We heard a woman's voice coming from the back, the piano seemed to have stopped playing. The maid changed her behaviour very fast and opened the door for us to walk in, she frowned when we did not remove out boots but didn't say anything. She lead us, with weapons, to the second floor and a large room where we could hear the piano playing once more.

I saw her once more, sitting there playing the piano gracefully. Her hair was tied into a ponytail which allowed two bangs on the side of her face, she had sharp brown eyes that were focused on the note pages in front of her. She appeared absolutely loving looking at her as she shone thanks to the fireplace and some well place candles around the room. Her clothing were different, from what I could see she had a dress shirt and a corset over it, few woman would wear things this way but she looked a lot better in the uniform if you asked me. Even as the maid invited us to sit down we remained standing and waited for the Major to speak. She was probably waiting for her to finish playing, it was a good tune but I have never heard of it. We finally sat down when the maid brought coffee to which the Major wore a big smile and thanked the maid. The song finished soon afterwards and the young girl got up and sat in the chair closest to herself, that is when I noticed she was also wearing pants.

"Welcome to my family manor, I am Naomi Desraft, what can I do for you this evening?" She opened the discussion.

"I am Major Tanya von Degurechaff of the Imperial Army, we are here this evening to take you back with us for some debriefing."

"Okay who brought along the lost child? She is saying some pretty big things here for her age?" She looked around to us but we all nodded sideways.

"I am a real soldier, yes I may be small but I can perform my duties."

"But I mean, such a cute little child, a soldier? That is absolutely ridiculous, come on someone stop pulling my leg." This girl... was not afraid one bit of the Major.

"Are you mocking me?"

"Well its either that or the Empire has no ethics or moral to begin with by using a child as a soldier. Can I see the form to get out of school signed by your parents now?"

"I am an orphan but before that I am an Imperial Mage and will be respected as such."

"Ah, I am sorry." She bowed to the Major in apology, she may be bold but seems she still has a heart, she then looked at me. "Is she for real?"

"Yes, she is our Major and commander, this is not a joke." I answered with a straight face, this made her lean back into her chair to think for a while.

"Alright, I am sorry for my discourtesy, I simply could not believe it. Could we possibly start over?"

"As long as you now understand better, we are here tonight to take you into our custody."

"Is there a specific reason for it?"

"You will find out once we arrive."

"You see, travelling for too long in my state, is quite uncomfortable to say the least so if I could help you here that would be fantastic." Oh right she should still be feeling unwell right now and at least for tomorrow as well.

"I doubt it but providing information right away would help, are you a mage?" The Major asked, it was obvious we would still take her but getting information first was skipping steps in a good way.

"In a way, I do not do anything as fancy as your own mages."

"What do you mean?"

"I can shoot bullets faster, enhance my physical abilities and a few other things such as temperature and sound but nothing as grandiose as flying or explosions." She shrugged.

"We have retrieved an odd rifle at the start of the campaign, at the city you first appeared in and claimed some of our armoured equipment. Any ideas?"

"Yeah that was mine, stolen by the field commander of the time for the better of Dacia he said, sure helped if you took hold of it almost immediately after." She chuckled yet she doesn't seem to have realized she subtly admitted to being the mage that gave us issues.

"You got another one?"

"Lost in the woods."

"Any others?"

"None."

"Can you manufacture them?"

"Nope."

"Who can?"

"My father." She spoke as a matter of fact a bit too well, but wasn't her father dead?

"Where is he?"

"Dead and buried."

"When and how?"

"Murdered by mages who used a child's voice to lower our guards in order to maximize civilian casualties when they bombarded the factory he presided over." She held an extremely cold smile at us, but her eyes were even colder, inviting us to try something against her. She knew we were responsible, we could not have that many people with a child's voice, so our Major was an easy, an correct, guess as to the one responsible for the warning.

"I am sorry but we gave a warning as per the International Laws and he remained inside at the time." The Major answered coldly.

"Hmm I am not criticizing your actions on that subject anymore, a child soldier did exactly what she could, it is not an act of deception at this point now is it. Would be different if miss Serebryakov here changed her voice but she did not thus I cannot be too angry." She returned to a more natural face, this little girl is pretty but dangerous it seems.

"Without the rifle would you be able to reproduce what you did to take down our mages?" This made all of us stiffen, none of us here present went down but the Major took quite the beating yesterday.

"The answer is no, it was a specific catalyst, I can boil water though if you prefer." None of us laughed, we would have if it would have been anyone else other than the one responsible of shooting down any mage she desired.

"Could you show us your computation orb?"

"What's a computation orb?" She tilted her head again.

"What allows mages to output spells from their mana, do you not have one?" The Major's eyebrows shot up.

"I mean, that would be the rifle no?"

"No it would not." The Major pulled out her type 97 from her coat to show her. "This is what I am talking about."

"It is actually pretty adorable how your hand is just barely big enough to hold it." She made a weird face that looked like a '3' while the Major frowned once more reminded of her age.

"I assume you will give us permissions to look through your father's notes to find how to recreate your rifle."

"Oh I already did that for you." This generated a wave of surprise among us.

"Could you hand it over?"

"Sure, if you don't mind a bit of crispness."

"Meaning?"

"It makes for a very warm fire wouldn't you say?" She chuckled as she pointed to the fireplace, we could see some remnants of paper inside already well burnt away within the logs.

"We will now be taking you under custody, please do not resist or we will be obligated to use force to restrain you." The Major stood up as she spoke and we follow suit, miss Desraft did not resist, if anything she cooperated with a smile. She held both hands slightly over her head as she stood up as well and I moved in behind her to make sure she did not try anything funny. If anything, she played this well as she knew our objectives before and dragged the discussion on to this end.

"By the way miss Serebryakov, the uniform is on the table beside the door, I did promise." She smile at me.

"Thank you for remembering but I am afraid we will not enjoy that coffee together as you so wished."

"No worries, we just had one." She looked forward and joined her hands behind her when she realized she didn't need to hold them up anymore.

It was very unfortunate that we had to arrest her, it is even more unfortunate that the Dacian mage that gave us much problem was a little girl my age. She was not as young as the Major but worried deeply that a child her age was on the battlefield, war is a conflicting time with our morals. She was more mature this evening than earlier for some reason, almost inviting a fight compared to her sweet innocent self when she had the soup. I wonder if this was just her way of coming to term with how this war ended. She has suffered enough by losing her father but now who knows what will happen.

* * *

 _Old Dacian Capital_ _October 22 1924_

 _( Naomi Desraft_ _)_

I fucked up.

I knew the moment some Imperials showed up at the manor that I got ratted out as a witch, or a mage to foreign powers. That meant that my only resort was direct negotiations which was going well until well you know, I burned what they wanted, quite a major oversight on my part. I do not regret it since those were my orb schematics and they needed to disappear but still it hurts a bit to fail to this extent. I spent the night in a Dacian prison actually, it was too late for them to do anything with me so they just locked me up to prevent escaping. Come morning I was summoned to the diner table, well meeting room with a diner table. At the table sat the highest Dacian authority, the pigs in sheep clothing, on the other side were the imperial officers and last nights mage crew. I had a sort of interrogation chair on the side.

"Miss Naomi Desraft we have received information you would be a mage." An imperial asked me.

"I suppose I am."

"Why do you suppose?"

"My magic is different from your own country, can it truly be called the same at that point?"

"Yes, if you perform magic, you are a mage. Are you a mage?"

"Then yes, I am a mage." Ugh this was ridiculous, questions for the sake of confirming stuff we already know, it is like an actual court of justice.

"Do you agree with the reports stating your involvement in the war?"

"I have not seen the reports myself thus no, I do not agree with them."

"Were you involved in the war?"

"Yes but I still disagree with the reports."

"Stay on the questions miss Desraft." _Tch_! Up yours mate! He signalled a soldier and they brought in a box which they opened and out came my first railgun, completely charred to boot.

"Have you seen this weapon before?"

"Yep."

"Do you know where it came from?"

"My father."

"Do you know where he is."

"Dead and buried in the cemetery now."

"What killed him?"

"Imperial Mages blowing up his factory."

This created an instant moment of silence from the imperial side except for the mages that already knew of it. This is a repeat from the conversation from last night.

"Are you able to reproduce it?"

"Given the time, resources and preferential contract terms, possibly." I answered with a smile, this caused some unrest in the mages since I denied them last night although they should know that I burned the papers thus logically would have read them before doing so.

"Moving on, have you used the rifle yourself in combat against the Imperial Army."

"Without a doubt."

"Why is there no doubt?"

"No one else can use it, as determined last night, this is my computation orb or well catalyst for spells."

"Do you not have an orb by itself?"

"I did in the shape of a rifle, but you guys stole it and put it in a box to question me about later."

My sarcasm is not making friends but this is what I think of this process. Repetitive, unproductive questions to obtain the stupidest of details. This is inefficiency in the system right there and I hate it.

"Our reports state that your hair was white on the battlefield yet here you are with black hair, any ideas?" He finally asked something worth answering.

"Yes, this is what happens when I use magic. Does it not affect your mages in a similar way?" The officer turned to the child Major.

"No sir, none of our physical traits change when we use magic, this is an unheard of byproduct." She answered immediately.

"Could you demonstrate for us?" He asked me, bold isn't he? Or does he feel safe with his own mages around. I pointed to the rifle, because for this scenario it is my catalyst and not my rosary, he nodded and I walked up to hold it in my hands again. You know looking at him now, what a rushed job it was, solid build by the imperials but I was in too mush of a rush and made it ugly and inefficient. I poured a bit of mana out and could feel my hair change which led most of the room to release some expression. I held the rifle in a relaxed state and simply looked at the imperials with confidence.

"That is a very interesting phenomenon." The officer finally spoke once freed from his stupor.

"Any other questions or may I go home? I am quite tired after all of this."

"No, in fact we will be doing this differently." This caused the whole room to raise at least an eyebrow. "Would you be willing to work for us? I understand you have lost your father because of our troops but your rifle could help end this war a lot faster and we would like to mass produce it for our mages if possible." He spoke as he leaned into his hands on the table.

"There are a lot of variables to consider before I give my answer."

"No there isn't." He interrupted. "You are a threat to us and we cannot just let you run wildly especially since you confirmed you could rebuild that rifle. That means Dacia could rebel when we turn our back and we wouldn't want a repeat of a month ago. Thus you choose between voluntary employment of imprisonment."

"That is denying my basic rights to freedom as an individual." I frowned.

"I have no idea what you are on about."

"And that, is why I shall have to refuse your offer, ignorance of basic human rights is a crime in itself." I put the rifle back down before it got messy, wouldn't want them to shoot me before arresting because I was armed with an unloaded weapon. A quick look towards the mages got me some neutral looks, some were approving that I set down the rifle, an awkward smile from Serebryakov but a very interested gaze from the child. The rest was simple, I was arrested for real with handcuffs and put into a truck, not a carriage, a truck with engine and everything and went on a trip to the Empire without passport. I cannot say the trip was great but vastly superior to riding a horse and this in a quarter of the time. It did not even take two days that we arrived at their headquarters inside their borders, they rotated driver and sleep schedule to bring me here for some reason.

I was brought into the building and after a few hallways ended up in a doctors office with said expert and Serebryakov. A confused look on my face led to a smile from her and the the military police to exit, few footsteps indicated they were waiting outside.

"I won't run if that is what they are afraid of." I started off. "So what are we doing now?" I was tired from the trip, I didn't take chances and barely slept. A lone girl surrounded by half a dozen soldiers is not exactly the safest environment, it felt like an execution squad to me.

"We will do a physical examination to see if we can understand your hair changing and then lock you where you won't cause problems." Serebryakov answered.

"How troublesome." I sighed. I went through the physical examination, I had no trouble stripping in front of other women and of course no complaints if they stripped with me but I was not so lucky today. I barely got my undershirt off that my rosary picked their interest.

"You also wear a rosary?" Serebryakov asked.

"Yes, I am a servant of God after all, how about you miss Serebryakov?"

"I follow the Major which is also a fervent believer of God, she radiates like an apostle from the heaven."

"Quite the praise, I will have to see that for myself one day." I whistled inside, was there already a second prophet who was doing a better job than I?

I took off the rest and the physical proceeded as expected, muscle reflexes, lung conditions, vision, hearing and so on so forth. It ended that nothing stood out, except the new stains on the medical bed, so they simply took a bit of my hair as sample for different experimentation. I was putting my clothes back on that I realized my rosary was taken by Serebryakov. She looked shocked.

"What is wrong miss Serebryakov?"

"This rosary has some diamonds inside."

"Well my father had a belief about women and jewellery."

"This actually looks like gears and wires inside, this is not ordinary now is it."

"I wouldn't know, I just wear it."

"Do you truly have that much difficulty to be honest with me for once?" She looked a bit hurt, I was actually shocked she could see through me so clearly, what is up with that? Actual woman are truly scary compared to tom boyish ones such as myself.

"I am very sorry miss Serebryakov, you saved my life, spared it and even took care of me after, I have been ungrateful. That rosary is my real computation orb, self-built, and I used it during the war to shoot down mages, your comrades." I bowed deeply and stayed there, I was in the wrong this whole time, she isn't a bad person.

"You see, I knew the moment I met you that you weren't a bad girl, you just didn't trust anyone, I can forgive you for the small lies but this orb will need to be confiscated." She smiled at me. "Also calling me Visha would be fine, you did not want to kill us, just protect your homeland."

"Well yeah, trust is not a trait you develop in Dacia."

Unfortunately I have lost my orb now, I think Visha is now a friend but I will be living in jail now so you know, good for me. The military police wasted no time after the examination to lead me towards a cell halfway underground and leave me there to rot, handcuffs and everything. There was a guard at the door of the room but that would be it, I was the only prisoner around. Well this is a very awkward position for me, both as a person and prophet. I have never been in jail before well except for when I was in Dacia but that didn't count since it was custody not arrest. I could try to escape but where to go would be the question especially as an Imperial most wanted. They know how I look now and that I can change my hair colour, they would hunt me down even more now that they know I can build orbs and rifle. Well I will give it a few days, when I will be bored enough I will leave and go to Italy or whatever its called now, Ilnoa? The pizza must be fantastic there.

* * *

 _Empire Southern Army HQ_ _October 25 1924_

 _( Viktoriya Serebryakov_ _)_

The Major was enjoying her morning coffee when I briefed her about the rosary orb that I handed to the higher ups.

"She wore a rosary shaped orb? How odd." She simply responded.

"Yes, she mostly mentioned being a servant of God but it is not unlike us, she was simply on the wrong side of the border."

"You sound as if you like that girl." She sent me a smile.

"She is not a bad person, she just seemed to rush things. She even forgave us who caused the death of her father."

"I sure hope you won't take pity on all of our enemies like this."

"No Major, this time it was an accident, she wasn't supposed to be the mage."

"I know, but a habit of helping civilians that can backfire is not a good thing."

She returned to her documents and coffee without another word, she liked to tease me about the small things. I honestly do not dislike Naomi, she was just a girl my age that tried her best for her country, I am no different except she volunteered while I was conscripted. The Dacian commander even said he tried to get rid of her but she came back, it seems her loyalty might actually rival that of the Major for the Empire. It is too bad she did not accept to help us, maybe I could convince her somehow later, she did mention preferential terms so clearly it is not impossible.

"Serebryakov."

"Yes Major?"

"Did they say what they would do with the orb?"

"Yes they said they would send it to an expert." She looked at me.

"What kind of expert?"

"I heard it would be sent to someone who is good at examining the odd miracle for orbs." The Major visibly shivered a bit. "Is something wrong?"

"I just had a really bad feeling is all."

"Would you know the expert? I heard you were working with the training department for new orbs which led to the creation of the type 97 we now use."

"Yes I know one, but he isn't an expert, more like a madman. If we are lucky it will be an actual expert."

Her voice was cracking a bit, I guess orb development testing is not very easy. I once heard that it is very taxing on mages to test something that could blow up at any time in their face. I wonder what will happen with that orb now.

* * *

 **Author Notes**

Youjo Senki, orb expert, we all know who is coming ;)

The war ending was inevitable, could I have made their meeting more dramatic? maybe. Would it have been more believable or true to the characters? nope. Typical end of war, loot until satisfaction both in materials, intelligence and most importantly, human resources.

I made a few quiet references, hard to spot but brownie point to those who can highlight them also Naomi dropped 2 MAJOR hints that she is from a different era in this chapter, can anyone guess what they were? (hint: they are NOT obvious but there ARE reactions to them). By site rule I cannot make prizes but correctly identifying them earns you the right to request something in the story. It's not a prize if it ain't guaranteed right :P

As per usual let me know what you think of the story so far as a review or DM and have a wonderful day.


	7. Chapter 7: Prisoner for hire

__Empire Southern Army HQ October 29 1924__

 _( Viktoriya Serebryakov_ _)_

After a very successful war against Dacia, the Major started to work us even harder. It was considerably easier than the Rhine yet we took considerable amounts of damage ourselves against Naomi and had a lot of issues pinning down her location. She was not even a trained soldier which just proved to the Major that there were flaws in our training if we could not do as much as that. I would like to advocate the other side instead, that Naomi was just that amazing instead of us being lacking. A girl my age, which is still relatively close to the Major, invented her own orb, built it and went to war where she gave Imperial Mages a run for their money during a whole month and still survived in the end.

"Is something the matter Serebryakov?" The Major asked.

We were currently resting in her office with coffee as she passed through a bit more paperwork to finish up the reports, order for supplies and more.

"I was simply wondering what would happen to Naomi since it has been a few days since her orb was sent for examination." The Major actually looked up at me as I said those words.

"We actually received a report around midday regarding her orb. It seems that the research department could not pierce it's secret, they conducted several tests and every time they said it was a dud."

"That would be hard to believe considering how much damage we sustained due to it."

"Exactly the reason they are baffled, they simply cannot understand how a dud could inflict so much damage to the latest type 97."

"Could it be possible she wasn't lying and actually needed the rifle?"

"I don't know, we would need to ask her and hope she tells us the truth."

"Well Major, if you remember she did not refuse to work for us as long as the conditions were right."

That last comment created a pause as the Major went into thinking. We heard a knock on the door and I went to answer it. After I received the message I turned back to the Major.

"We are being called to the Lt. Colonel ma'am."

"Did they give us a reason?"

"Yes it seems to be about discussing the orb in question."

"I suppose they would ask for our opinion, alright let us not keep him waiting."

On our way to the office we picked up Lt. Weiss to have a proper opinion together since he was the first one to take a shot from her back when the invasion began. We arrived and noticed there were three chairs in front of the desk, this was not regular but nevertheless we remained standing and saluted.

"Thank you for coming Major Degurechaff, please have a seat." He invited us to sit as well.

"I was told we were to discuss the orb but the report has left me in the impression that it was a dud."

"I thought you would be the first to deny the results of the reports considering the damage done to our side during the war."

"While I admit the magical damage done to our side is extensive but I will not let go of the possibility that she might have lied to us."

"While I would normally agree with you, we have tested both the rifle and rosary but none of them produced the magic that could cause such damage. We have searched her and she has nothing else that could be an orb, she was also confirmed by Dacia to be their... 'witch'." He hesitated in using that term.

"Maybe it just works differently and that's why we cannot use it?" I expressed my thought.

"Maybe, we shall know soon, I have summoned her here." The Lt. Col. claimed and it ended our discussion short as we could hear footsteps in the hallway.

* * *

 _~approximately 20 minutes before~_  
( Naomi Desraft )

I am so bored out of my mind right now!

Two whole days now; I have been imprisoned while having nothing to do. Some people would envy the life of not working for your next meal and just laze around all day but this is not my preference. I need to do things, keep busy, I like to be lazy as much as the next guy, girl, but there needs to be some motion. I simply wake up to do some exercises and then laze around in between the meals and more exercises. The guard also refuses to chat with me but he is lucky since he has a deck of cards.

The cell I have is empty, bare, nothing but three solid walls with a grated window and the all famous iron bar door wall. I do have a sort of bunk for bed but its really nothing worth singing about; I slept better on the cold ground outside during the war. I should also mention that ever since that imperial soup from the front lines, the only food I received where prison rations and they were terrible; worse than Dacian dry army rations. Their bread is... something else, it is like swallowing a brick since it absorbs the water they give me and it's just a terrible feeling. What I wouldn't do for a good warm meal right now. Please God send me something, if you need a sound argument just ask yourself what good is a prophet in jail. The guard got up as the door clicked open and a group of four soldiers approached my cell, not like there were any other prisoners here to begin with. Coincidence in timing? I think not!

"Miss Desraft, you shall be accompanying us today." One of them spoke as the guard unlocked my cell, I should probably mention that they never once took off the handcuffs I had since the first day.

"Where are we going?" I asked as I walked out into the middle of the group.

"You have been summoned by the higher ups."

Gee thanks, that answers all my questions. Although sometimes you work too fast God, I won't complain, on the contrary I will even praise you as long as it doesn't blow up in my face. The walk was quiet until one of them decided to be a smart ass and put his hand on my head to lower it as we walked through a doorway. I don't even know why considering all four of them were taller than me and I can clearly fit in the doorway. I got angry and kicked him in the side of his left knee which made him yell as his hand let go of my head but I still spun around and in a big circular motion whacked his head with my combined fists upwards.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" I spat at him as I towered over his collapsed self. "I will make the message clear and simple, I will obey as long as you don't try anything funny and that you never put your hand on me. Shall we continue on?" I asked as I looked at the leader.

This is an era before prisoner rights were well documented and respected thus as a frail little lady, I have no choice but to fight at every occasion to prevent some ill intention men from taking advantage of things.

Not a single one of them were happy and they seemed ready to jump me for some good old fashion brawling, which I would lose due to my hands being tied and a lone young adult woman body against four trained adult male. Surprisingly they held it in and simply stared at me with piercing gazes and picked up the idiot from the floor. We resumed out walk quietly and not a single one of them tried to touch me, that's a good sign. I understand that sometimes physical contact is required but I will be damned if I allow them to touch me whenever they want, I do have some pride and honour to maintain.

We finally arrived to some office somewhere deep in the main building, well I call it that since its the biggest around and everything was mostly clean and organized. The leading soldier knocked before we entered into a fairly well sized room with a desk and a few seats in front, they seemed out of place and were probably brought in just for me or something similar. A quick sweep of the room revealed that the child soldier, Visha and another male soldier who was probably a mage stood on the right side of the room relative to me. There was a man sitting at the desk, he seemed fairly tall, with short brown hair. The guards came in the room as well and I was indicated at a seat facing the desk in which I sat, while they all stood behind me. This was a very uncomfortable feeling to have four men behind me in what seems to be an interrogation, A+ for atmosphere creation dear Empire.

"It is a pleasure to meet you miss Naomi Desraft." The man at the desk opened the discussion. "I am Lieutenant Colonel Eric von Rerugen and I was put in charge of you, or what happens from now on to be more specific."

"The pleasure is all mine." I got up and the motion for curtsy but wearing pants and with handcuffs it was a tad awkward, hopefully the message got across.

"I will first go through a few questions if that is alright with you."

"I am all ears."

"Are you truly the one known as the Witch of Dacia? Rumored to have invented her own computational orb and caused the Empire great losses as to heavy equipment and hospitalized a few of our mages."

"I never accepted the name but yes I am referred to often enough as a Witch and I come from Dacia. The orb was a collaborative work from my innate magic and my father's work as head of the national factory. As for the losses, I am uncertain for the kill count but I did indeed take down many tanks, artillery, planes and mages."

"Funny you mention your father..."

"Careful what you say next." I hissed at him while glaring. He took a moment to swallow and rest his hands on the desk.

"You mention your father helping you with your orb, yet from the reports of our local investigation he was very... distressed about you." I couldn't help but chuckle at that statement, it was very accurate.

"Let's just say that I am quite old for a bachelorette and was a bit too stubborn for his taste in that regards."

"I see, I can understand his worries then since you have also earned the name of Demon."

"I kept busy." I was trying to make myself comfortable but it proved a tough crowd especially the child soldier, she keeps her two very icy eyes on me without budging.

"Let us approach the two real subject here since they have nothing to do with our local research. Your computational orb itself and possible employment in the Empire."

"You will have to do better than the man who originally offered me a job here."

"Well the conditions have not changed, you have the same two choices but I can explain the perks of working for us."

"So be it, give me your side of the coin." I sighed as I crossed my legs and rest my hands on top.

"You would get the regular hours of work, we would of course assess your true skills and give you a job best suited. There are many opportunities but the biggest for you is to entirely skip the initial recruitment process as you were part of an army before and we will count it for you. We are ready to give a bonus for selling us your computational orb design."

"To be said plainly, regular work time, no basic training or paperwork delays and a sign up bonus if I tell you how it works."

"If you wish to dig into it, yes. In regards to the bonus we will cut no expenses since it is quite revolutionary even by our standards."

"You see, I have a distressed mother back home, what could you do about that since my family has lost its source of income?"

"We could make an exception and enroll her on veteran pension to support herself while you work for us."

He was putting in a lot, he was not afraid to give out money to hire me but the truth is, he told me that my orb as revolutionary which means I fucked up. I could not just sell it to them, I feel bad things would happen. I am mostly afraid of that job he would be offering me since both of us have no idea what it would be.

"I am sorry." This caused his brows to rise. "You are offering me a lot but it is a bit hard to ask me to work for the country that just conquered mine."

"Think of it this way, you are now an Imperial citizen so you would be fighting for your own."

"Cheeky aren't ya?" I chuckled at him. "Fine I can work but you make sure my mother gets her income, I am afraid she won't get far without it or myself around."

"That is wonderful news..."

"Not so fast, our issue right now is the engineering was the work of my father so it will take time for me to reverse engineer the orb." While completely false, I will hide behind this for now.

"Are you telling us you cannot replicate the rifle and orb you personally used in the war?"

"I can attempt but I cannot guarantee due to him doing a large part of the work and I burned his schematics." This caused a sigh from him. "I can on the other hand use both fairly well as your mages can attest."

"We will have to put that to the test since our own revealed your orb to be a dud."

Oh shit I forgot about that! I installed a security system out of good habit where the orb verifies the mana signature. At least that is the theory, I never really had someone else to test it with so I programmed it to only resonate with my own mana hoping it was somewhat unique. To hear it worked is both a relief and a source of stress since I will probably have to explain it somehow later.

"I can assure you it was the working version I handed over, your mage wounds did not come from a dud."

"Indeed well we shall wait for the orb to return, it is scheduled for this afternoon. We shall also attest to your skills with your orb but I do not recommend doing anything funny since we will have a whole wing of mages with us."

"This might be a funny question, but how many mages is a wing?" I was an army reserve, not air force so a wing to me is an unknown amount.

"Usually 36 but this one is reinforced, thus 48."

Now that's a lot of mages! Just thinking back on it, this wing was probably the one I was fighting, one against forty eight is not very good odds. Thank you Lord for keeping me alive, that is all I can say here. It seems I did the right call to work with them since I was now invited to lunch! Praise be to good food that is not prison rations. My handcuffs were removed and almost immediately I rubbed my wrists which were almost showing permanent marks. The marks will probably leave by tomorrow but it felt good to just rub it in. My four escorts were also dismissed under the reason that I was to be considered a soldier from now on, well at least for now.

We arrived at the dining hall where a few more got invited, it seems to be the custom to have the officers dine together and for this event I am the special guests. Well myself and the Lt. Colonel since the other three looked like mages and stood up when we arrived. A quick salute from the child soldier and they seemed more at ease but kept taking looks towards me.

"Miss Desraft here are the officers in charge of the wing who you gave much trouble to." The Lt. Colonel introduced briefly.

"A pleasure to meet you all." I did the same as earlier with a curtsy.

"Is that really the one we couldn't pin down?" The man with the roundest face asked.

"She is Naomi Desraft, a new volunteer to serve the Fatherland, her history made her a highly sought after candidate." The child soldier introduced me, she then turned to me. "I am Major Tanya von Degurechaff and I lead the 203rd battalion, I look forward to your contributions to the Empire."

"My deepest apologies, I still cannot take what you say seriously. Your cute face just doesn't match your attitude." I tried to smile it off but I was seriously off balance with her.

"Do not let it affect your work or your attitude towards your superior officers and I will let that comment slip." She glared in what seemed to be straight into my soul. Right, well guess I will do my best to not interact with her when possible.

"Maybe an introduction would be necessary Major Degurechaff." The Lt. Colonel coughed.

"You have already met my adjudant Viktoriya Serebryakov." I smiled at her. "He is First Lieutenant Weiss, my Vice Commander of the wing."

"Oh the green horn!" I exclaimed without thinking much.

"The what?" He himself reacted.

"The green horn, the new guy, only those new are foolish enough to go into battle without a helmet." I remember trying to shoot him when they destroyed the HQ of the Dacian army on the first day.

"When did I not have my helmet? I always wear my full kit."

"I clearly remember you not having a helmet when you invaded the Dacian Army HQ."

"Oh yes my helmet was sliced off that day, wait a second, you were the one who shot at us that day!" Oh good we now have a mutual understanding.

"Yes well that one did not work well so lucky for all of us right now." I chuckled, it did create a bit of an awkward setting when we all think back to when we all first met without meeting. Life can be funny sometimes, or God, I think they can be interchangeable sometimes.

"Didn't we shoot you with a crippling injury that day as well?" The one with strangely straight hair asked.

"Yes and no, you did hit but not fatal since I am still here but the damage is done and I have quite the scar in my sides. I am unfortunately damaged goods now so I hope one of you could take responsibility since I cannot get freely married anymore." That created an immediate wave of unease among the men here present while the child just tilted her head.

"Wasn't it Serebryakov that shot you?" She asked.

"Major!" The culprit spoke out.

"I am totally okay with her taking responsibility if we are to be honest." This created shock among everyone. "I mean if we see the lineup here and someone has to be responsible, I would take the beautiful Serebryakov any day over you guys." I laughed as I semi grabbed her in my arms and waved them sideways.

"Hard to argue against that." The man named Weiss caved in with a smile and a quick head shake.

"Indeed, in all the officers she is the best looking one." The straight hair one agreed.

"You guys!" Visha weakly protested as she somewhat accepted her fate in my arm but due to the situation I let her go. I will return, that I promise. I successfully broke the ice and somehow prevented them from introducing me as the one who shot at them. The other two were introduced as Neumann and Koenig and each of them lead a section of the Wing, roughly twelve each except for Tanya that oversaw them all and Visha who assisted her.

We proceeded to now have a rather casual diner, it wasn't that great but it was heavenly to someone like myself who suffered these past few weeks. Sausages, potatoes and barbed wire something, honestly I couldn't care less, it was much better than the brick bread. The talk wasn't much, a few questions about my life in Dacia and I returned them to learn about the Empire since in theory, it is now my country and my old lands will become like theirs. Small talk is stuff I was okay at, nothing too grand but not too terrible so I could get by without sassing anyone too much.

The dreaded afternoon came too soon as we gathered in another office where we found my old rifle, confiscated by that officer in the first town taken over, with some used ammunition by it. There were even some tools and few spare components they seem to have guessed could be used to repair it or something. Without much invitation, I just started working on it to see if I could do a bit of maintenance. Based on its state, it is mostly just burnt from overuse but the mechanism should be fine... and I spoke too soon, they opened it wrong or something. I must have made a face since the Lt. Colonel sighed.

"Can you fix it without your father?" He asked.

"I think so, this is one of the simpler tricks to this rifle but we can see here the damage done from shooting too many shots in short time intervals. So if you were looking into a semi automatic rifle, you will need to improve on my father's design." My old habits were kicking in, I could work as I explained the mechanism without cares, i did that a lot in my old life. "Let us not forget though that this rifle is incomplete without my orb, do we have an ETA on it?"

As if it was waiting for me to ask, we heard a group of people walking in the hallways and we all turned towards the doors. There was a short argument outside the door before it burst opened very violently and a tall man with a very steampunk looking monocle wearing a lab coat stormed in. He spotted us in no time and seemed to focus on me as he almost ran up and grabbed both my shoulders with a surprising amount of force, almost knocking me onto the table behind me, I was still sitting in my chair to work on the rifle.

"You have met God haven't you!" He was almost yelling with this huge smile on his face which honestly was close, way too close, I could count the pores on his skin. I immediately tried to kick in my earlier reflexes but couldn't move my arms and my legs did not have an angle to do anything.

"Get off me!" I spoke strongly as I tried to wring myself out of his grip.

"You have spoken to him, he has enlightened you has he not?! Share with me the gift of the Heavens!" Oh dear God he was in kissing range and this is definitely not my type of guy.

I gave a desperate throw to the side with my entire body weight and managed to topple the chair down with both of us along. I quickly scrambled up but in the motion he grabbed my leg and I fell flat down on my face. I did not get another attempt as he turned me over to once again pin me down and quite literally breathe down my neck.

"We have both been blessed by the Lord and we must simply praise his work. Why do you not wish to share you gift with I, a devout follower?"

Oh Lord, this is the kind of heretic who killed me before, why do I have another? Is it already my time to die again? I started tearing up, no matter how prideful I was, I could not get over how weak I am now. I could not shake him off or anything and he kept breathing down me. The shame and humiliation is beyond me.

"Please, get off me." I was almost crying.

"Not until you share your gift..." I never cared to listen as I tried my best to struggle free, this stupid devout pervert was just too much, I wanted out. The more I fought the more the tears came out and the more I realized how unfair his strength was genetically since he clearly did not exercise much from his muscle state. My salvation came from two strong arms grabbing him and dragging him away. I was also dragged away but in a much gentler manner from smaller arms. It only took me an instant to recognize Visha and grabbed onto to her, curling up inside her arms while still half on the floor. I couldn't hold it anymore and let the tears flow, this was just ridiculous to have such a crazy bastard running around, harassing little girls such as myself.

"What is going on Dr. Shugel? Why were you doing that?" Lt. Colonel Rerugen was asking questions.

"She was blessed by God, she has secrets to magic we have yet to understand, it is simply beyond us mere mortals to understand yet we must study both for our faith and science." He broke into a mad laughter.

"What are you talking about?"

"Her orb, is the work no amateur could do! The internal design, the way it computes and works is simply more advanced than the type 95 I developed with the help of God. She has to be a child of God and have been guided for years to reach this level of work."

"Are you telling me that the orb she used against us, from a backwards country in terms of era, was in fact more advanced than ours where a good portion of our budget is dedicated." The child soldier asked.

"Yes exactly! That is precisely why it HAS to be the work of God! She had no budget, no resources, no instructions of mentor. It is simply her genius and the guidance of God that she could achieve it."

"Wasn't the orb a dud?"

"Yes it is to us mere mortals but I assume she is even beyond our mages, she must be special!"

"Her hair does turn white when she uses magic." Weiss commented, please no more attention to me, focus on the madmen who almost killed me under his weight and perversion.

"HAHAHAHAHAA LIKE AN ANGEL! SHE IS TRULY A CHILD OF GOD!" The madmen just lost it yet no one here had the will nor the strength to argue with him while I stayed there crying in Visha's bosom. Working for the Empire suddenly sound extremely displeasing and a decision I will come to regret.

* * *

 _Author's Notes_

Hello everyone, first of all, a grand apology to everyone for being extremely late for this one but I have legitimate reasons to be late described below for those who care, else, thank you all for sticking with me even with the grand delay and I promise to increase quality and speed from now on. Sorry this one is shorter than the others but I felt like ending it there was a good choice(?) but more to come for sure.

Rough estimate: one more chapter by the end of May, after that a hiatus of roughly 12-14 weeks before coming back and we shall see from there depending on how things go but I promise you all, this story is not dead and will not die until the madmen gets the last laugh.

Here is why I was so late since August:  
-August: acquired a house and mortgage, go me, also time of last update  
-September, company had a floppy release (I am a Software Developer fyi) and so it was a very intense month of fire fighting  
-October, team leader finally comes back after 13 months of maternity leaves, I got hired when she was gone, I am almost immediately put on Employee Improvement Program (shape up or get out)  
-November, doing new job thanks to the program to test my skills, I over perform and am thus removed from program but due to fire still there from September, paperwork never got done (this is my first and final mistake)  
-December, get Bonus for year accomplishment, go me! New Project along with Christmas made no time  
-January, terminated for business reasons, no joke that is the official story (note its been 3 months since the shape up warning thus legally time to let me go without fighting hence why it was a mistake to not push the issue due to fire fighting), I also realized after that since the warning, I had been doing the Team Leaders job, not my own, she basically got 3 months of no work thanks to me.  
-Spent next couple of months hardcore fighting to find new job to pay mortgage, wasn't easy so with paychecks coming in soon I can relax a bit and go back to writing, very sorry for delay again


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